


I can't deny i'm beggin' for attention

by fictionalportal



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Bonfires, F/F, Gen, Post-Canon, Sequel, Skinny Dipping, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Truth or Dare, all those are just in chapter one, i promise there's an actual plot, in addition to Trimberly goodness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-10-19 02:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10630398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalportal/pseuds/fictionalportal
Summary: The Rangers try to figure out what comes next after Rita, but trouble comes to them in the form of a new classmate named Tommy Oliver.Lots of Trimberly, lots of plot, lots of the Rangers being bros and having each others' backs.Chapter 1 summary: Ranger bonfire bonding post-Rita. Kim talks Trini into joining her on a dare: skinny dipping.





	1. Chapter 1

Fridays were the worst, if you were a Power Ranger. Most teenagers reveled in the freedom that Fridays brought. You could blow off homework inconsequentially, you could stay out late, you could sit around a fire with friends. The Rangers did all of those things, of course, but most friend groups didn’t beat each other up on a regular basis in the name of saving the planet. If there were any friend groups that did enjoy fighting each other for fun, they certainly didn’t have a sixty-five million year old alien robot telling them exactly how to punch each other. After a particularly brutal no-suit training session one Friday, the Rangers gathered on the top of the mountain just as they had before battling Rita Repulsa and her molten monster. It was now a month after the fight, and they sat around the hot fire on a humid spring night.

“I think Rita put me off gold accessories for good,” Kim said, adjusting the ice pack on her knee. She sat on the dirt, close to the fire.

Jason squinted at her. “You think that was the worst part of fighting an evil version of us?”

“Gold complements her complexion,” Billy insisted, gesturing toward Kim. He had escaped injury for most of training, but in his last sparring round Zack had clocked him in the nose. It had taken ten minutes for the bleeding to stop.

“I know I’m never painting my nails green again,” Trini added. A putty had hit her particularly hard on her right shoulder, but Jason had fashioned a sling that would hold an ice pack in place. For the first time, Trini had been thankful that he had been a quarterback.

“Yo!” Zack shouted, standing and immediately regretting the sudden movement. He sat back down on his rock, settling his hip onto a cold pack. “Let’s play truth or dare.”

Trini took a sip of the ginger beer Zack had brought up the mountain. “I thought we already knew each other’s horrible secrets,” she said.

“I’m literally freezing my ass off for the next twenty minutes,” Zack said. “Indulge me.”

“Please, it’s like eighty degrees up here,” Trini said, fiddling with the label on the glass bottle in her hands.

“Could be fun,” Kim suggested.

Trini glanced at her, brow twisted in inquiry. Kim flashed her a smile that was half _you know I’m right_ and half _please, don’t let Zack keep talking_.

“I’ll go first,” Billy volunteered. “Jason, truth or dare?”

“Billy, if you’re going first, that means you choose first,” Jason said.

“I have never played this game before,” Billy admitted.

“Because it’s _lame,” Trini mumbled to herself._

__

Kim stretched her legs towards the fire and leaned back on her elbows. She looked up to her left at Trini, seated on a lawn chair. Kim stared at her for a moment, and Trini noticed the fire's reflection sparkling in her eyes. Kim bumped Trini’s leg with her shoulder.

__

Trini conceded, but not without an eye roll so extreme that it would have earned her an hour long lecture at home. “Fine, let’s play.”

__

“Billy, truth or dare?” Jason asked across the fire.

__

“Uh, dare,” Billy replied.

__

“It’s really hard to come up with a good dare for a superhero...” Jason stared into the ground as if an idea might pop out of the dirt if he willed it hard enough.

__

“Truth, then,” Billy offered.

__

“How...many pets have you had?” Jason asked.

__

“Two, but don’t tell my mom. She doesn’t know about Frogger and Frogger Junior.”

__

Jason laughed. “Dude, I loved that game when I was little.”

__

“Frogger? Or frog catching in your backyard?” Billy asked.

__

“Both,” Zack answered. The boys began a competitive discussion about their highest scores on the classic game.

__

Jason had tied Trini’s sling tight--nothing shifted when she leaned down so that she was nearer to Kim’s seated level.

__

“Bet you never caught frogs,” Trini teased.

__

“You assume wrong,” Kim challenged. Before Trini had a chance to respond, Kim started the next round of questions. “Alright, Jason, truth or dare?”

__

“Truth,” Jason said quickly.

__

“Did you pick ‘truth’ because of what happened with the cow?” Kim asked.

__

“Yep,” Jason said. “No more dares.”

__

“Fine,” Kim sighed. “I had a really good one ready. Okay, truth--”

__

“Uh-uh, you already asked him something,” Zack broke in. “Your turn, princess.”

__

“That nickname doesn’t even--”

__

Zack cut her off again. “I dare you...to go skinny dipping.”

__

Trini snorted.

__

“Oh, gross!” Kim shrugged her shoulders up to her ears.

__

“That is not appropriate,” Billy said, shaking his head.

__

“Thank you. Plus, I didn’t even choose yet,” Kim added.

__

“Too late. The dare has been declared.” Zack put his hands behind his head and started to lie back on his rock, but he winced and bolted back up when he rolled weight onto his hip.

__

Kim’s mouth bent into a slight frown. She sat straighter and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine.”

__

Jason raised his eyebrows, which Trini hoped was out of alarm rather than arousal. Fortunately, Jason’s team leader mode had been triggered by the dare. “You sure that’s a good idea? It’s pretty dark out.”

__

Kim, now committed to following through, pushed herself up to standing. “I’ll be fine. But if you’re really worried, I’ll take someone with me.”

__

Trini tried dodging eye contact, a strategy she employed at school to avoid being called on. She felt the already heavy, humid air around her thicken. Surely Kim would want to punish Zack for issuing the dare. Or maybe she’d take Jason. Or--

__

“Trini.” Kim had turned her back to the fire and was now facing Trini head-on. The flames glowed behind her cross-armed, muscle-tanked silhouette.

__

Trini shook her head. “Nope. No way I’m getting wet again today.”

__

Kim took a step towards her. The glint in her eye couldn’t have been the fire’s reflection this time, and a nigh imperceptible smirk had turned the corner of her lips upward. Abruptly, she starting walking away from the fire. Halfway towards the edge of the cliff, she whirled around.

__

“Well? You coming?”

__

Trini’s eyes widened. Kim was serious.

__

Trini was about to go skinny dipping with an ex-cheerleader.

__


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> have you ever read skinny dipping angst? you're about to.

“You don’t actually have to do it, you know,” Trini said drily.

Kim pulled her dark gray muscle tank off and dropped it on a mossy rock without replying.

 _Of course she’s wearing that strappy pink thing_ , Trini thought. “They can’t see us down here. I can just tell them you did it.”

“A dare’s a dare.” Kim kicked her shorts off. “Well?”

Trini shook her head. “Zack didn’t dare me, did he?”

Kim shrugged and dove. She hardly made a splash in the lake below. Trini glanced over at Kim’s clothes and pulled at the hem of her own shirt. It could be fun. Maybe. It wasn’t like she had to strip completely. Kim hadn’t. Trini wondered if the water would the same perfectly warm temperature as the mysterious lake above the pit. Just as she was about to take off her shirt, she felt something collide with her back. The next moment, she was hurtling towards the water, screaming, and discovering that this lake was in fact very, very chilly.

“Kim!” Trini sputtered as she surfaced. 

Kim was clinging to the rocky wall of the cliff laughing.

Trini glared at her--and then had an idea. She let herself sink under until only her eyes and nose were above water. Kim’s laughter stopped when Trini raised an eyebrow and promptly disappeared.

Underwater, Trini opened her eyes. She could see Kim’s legs treading, keeping her afloat. _Not for long_ , Trini thought. She shot forward with one arm extended like a superhero flying through the air. Her hand closed around Kim’s ankle. Trini heard a faint yelp as she pulled Kim down.

Trini swam away, hoping to get back up onto the cliff before Kim could catch her, but it didn’t take long for Kim to reorient herself underwater. As Trini cut through the water, she glanced over her shoulder and saw a silhouette speeding towards her. Kim’s shadow reached out and grabbed Trini’s shirt. She shouted out a bubble of air and clawed through the slight current.

“Gotcha,” Kim said as she emerged. She still held Trini’s shirt--but the shirt no longer held Trini.

Trini circled around her like a shark, watching her switch directions frantically as she searched. Kim said something above the surface that Trini couldn’t quite understand.

“What was that?” Trini said, popping up just behind Kim.

Kim nearly jumped halfway up the cliffside. “I said that wasn’t funny. I thought some lake monster had gotten you!”

Trini rolled her eyes. Then she realized that Kim was at least half serious. “Oh, come on,” Trini said, splashing her playfully. “I could take a lake monster. Hundred percent.”

Kim huffed and turned away, swimming back to the wall of the cliff.

Trini followed. “I’m offended, Kim. You really don’t think I could take a lake monster?”

“No, I--of course you could fight a lake monster,” Kim said, suddenly looking anywhere but at Trini.

“And win,” Trini added.

Kim’s inhaled sharply, her nostrils flaring out. Her deep brown eyes finally landed on Trini, lingering for a moment. Then Kim tore her gaze away and started climbing.

“Kim?” Trini called up to her. Once Kim disappeared over the cliff’s edge, Trini kicked hard, propelling herself out of the water and making her way up the rocky wall.

“You’re probably the fastest climber,” Kim said. She had put her tank back on and was sitting beside the mossy rock where she had left her clothes. She tossed Trini's shirt back to her

“After you, maybe,” Trini said, covering up her bright yellow sports bra. She sat on the ground next to her teammate and leaned back against the rock. “There aren’t any monsters here, you know.”

Kim looked up and smiled slightly before clutching her knees up to her chest.

Trini hesitated, wondering if she should pry or back off. It wasn’t a habit of hers to emotionally engage with people, but it was different with the other Rangers. What they felt mattered to her, and Kimberly Hart being upset made Trini’s stomach turn over.

“You can talk to me,” Trini offered. She hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question.

Kim didn’t react at first. Then, without relaxing out of what looked like a very uncomfortable pretzel position, she turned to Trini.

“Either you’re crying or there’s lake stuck to your face,” Trini said. She scooted over so that she was next to Kim and dropped her head onto her tense shoulder.

Kim spoke quietly. “They found Rita underwater. Fished her up along with a bunch of mackerels.”

Trini felt the crease in her own forehead soften. She lifted her head off of Kim’s shoulder and put an arm around her. “There’s not even fish down there, which means there’s probably not another evil Power Ranger practicing their freestyle.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not being there for you.”

“What, with Rita? Sure, she tore my room up, but she didn’t kill me--”

“She killed Billy!” Kim exclaimed. She took a deep breath continued, quieter. “She almost killed you.”

“Yeah,” Trini started, “but she didn’t. And, I don’t know, she’s gone. I slapped her straight into space.”

A choked laugh escaped Kim’s throat. “That was weird.”

“Right?” Trini smirked. “Worked, though.”

They were quiet for a moment. Kim seemed to have withdrawn into her thoughts. "I never asked if you were okay."

Trini lifted her arm from around Kim’s shoulders, pausing a second before placing her hand on Kim’s leg. “I have you guys.”

“Yeah. Good. That’s good,” Kim managed before she flung her arms around Trini and started full-on crying.

Trini was unsure how to process anything that was happening. Between the tears and the remembering and Kim’s arms impossibly tight around her, she was about six states past overwhelmed without a map. 

“Kim,” Trini strained. “Kimberly.”

“Sorry,” Kim said, jerking back and wiping at her eyes. “I should have asked before tackling you again.”

Trini sighed. “You were crushing my lungs.”

She pulled Kim back into a much gentler hug, practically cradling Kim in her lap. Trini absently stroked the moonlight’s reflection on Kim’s hair, and a happy hum encouraged her to continue.

They sat like that for several minutes, Trini holding Kim while they both just breathed. Everything that had happened to them had suddenly become real in Trini’s mind. Billy had died, even if Zordon had brought him back. Other innocent people had died. Rita had almost killed her. These were simple facts that could not be altered by regret or fear.

Kim stopped Trini’s hand with her own and lifted herself into a seated position, still holding Trini’s hand. “We’ve got each other.” The steel behind her words affirmed that that was also a fact.

“Yeah.” Trini smiled back. “Speaking of, we should get back before the boys get bored without us.”

Kim sighed and stood, pulling Trini up by the hand.

Trini gave Kim another quick hug before starting back up to the mountain top.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rangers sleep over on the mountain, Kim and Trini battle over a doughnut, and we meet a new detention student.

“I can’t believe they’re actually doing it,” Jason said.

“That lake is not clean,” Billy added. Both of their faces looked like they had just been forced to smell rotting Brussels sprouts.

Zack muttered something to Jason that earned him a slap on the shoulder.

“Dude!” Jason hissed.

Billy jumped in. “Jason, what’d he say?” It was less a question and more a demand.

“Nothin’, Billy. Don’t worry about it.”

“I said,” Zack started, “that I am _not_ surprised.”

“Kim!”

The three of them perked up when they heard the shout from the direction of the lake. Billy jumped up from the ground.

“See?” Zack grinned. “Not surprised at all.”

“Was that Trini?” Billy asked, suddenly frantic. “Maybe somebody should go check on them. Preferably somebody who wasn’t recently dropped in the water by an evil green woman.”

“Billy, I think they’re fine,” Jason said.

Billy took a few steps away from the fire and paced quickly at the edge of the cliff. “I can’t see them.” He froze for a brief moment when he heard what could only be Kim’s laughter floating up from the lake. “Okay,” he breathed out as he walked back towards the fire.

Zack glanced up at the stars, smiling smugly.

“Wait. Why’d it get quiet?” Jason said, standing. “Something’s wrong.” He scrambled towards the cliff’s edge, getting down on his stomach to put as little darkness as possible between his eyes and where his friends should have been. Something bright caught his eye--neon yellow. He squinted and discovered that it was the strap of Trini’s sports bra peeking out of her off-the-shoulder sleeve as she put her arm around Kim.

Jason stood again and turned to face Billy and Zack. “They’re fine. Nothing to worry about.”

Billy let out an incredible yawn, roaring silently. “If you say so, Jason. Well, I’m exhausted.”

***

By the time Trini and Kimberly got back to camp, Zack and Billy were asleep and Jason was nowhere to be seen. Zack had curled his leather jacket into a pillow and was snoring loudly on the long, flat rock by the edge of the cliff that he had claimed. He hadn’t even taken off his shoes. Billy looked like he had accidentally fallen asleep: he was sitting up, his head was cocked at what had to be an uncomfortable angle, and he hadn’t changed into his pajamas. Billy--and everyone but Zack, for that matter--always brought pajamas along for premeditated mine sleepovers.

Kim held a finger up to her lips as the girls tiptoed around the fire. Hearing a scuffling sound, Trini threw her arm out in front of Kim to stop her. They listened as the scuffling grew louder. Both assumed fighting stances, fist raised in front of their faces and feet planted firmly. Trini nearly pounced on Jason as he jogged back into the fire’s light.

“Weird way to thank me for grabbing your bags,” he hissed.

“Thanks,” Trini muttered, accepting her washed out, yellow, string-tie bag from him. He handed Kim a similarly worn pink bag.

“Billy asked me to grab his pillow. He hates sleeping without it,” Jason explained. He glanced over to see Blue Ranger asleep in what looked like a yoga pose gone wrong. Jason visibly cringed and made his way over to Billy. “Goodnight, guys,” he whispered over his shoulder.

Kim looked down at the fraying bag in her hands. “I should probably invest in a new one of these. I’m gonna get changed,” she said.

Apparently Kim had meant to say, “I’m going to change my clothes, right here, right now.” She turned around and started stripping in front of Trini for the second time that night.

Trini averted her eyes, trying to give her teammate some privacy. She saw Jason ushering Billy into a more comfortable lying down position, placing his light blue pillow under his head. Jason set up his own red pillow a few feet over. Zack rolled onto his side and miraculously stopped snoring.

After weeks of changing clothes before coming to training, most of the team had started treating the pit like a locker room, but Trini and Billy still preferred changing before arriving at practice. Trini made the mistake of looking up just in time to see Kim remove her pajama shirt to turn it around. Trini took in the toned shoulders, the long-and-strong back muscles, and the two little dimples on Kim’s lower back. She had first noticed the cute indentations just before a training session, and she had nearly forgotten what formation they were supposed to be running.

Trini slung her bag over her shoulder, suddenly feeling like she needed to sprint away from the mountain top.

“You’re not staying?” Kim said.

“I didn’t tell my parents I would be,” she lied. She had told them that she would be sleeping over with a friend, and without asking any further questions they had joyfully approved.

Kim pouted and looked at Trini with wide eyes. “Who am I gonna get doughnuts with before detention tomorrow?”

“...The rest of the team?” Trini suggested. She considered the accompanying side-eye to be one of her best of all time.

“It’s late. No one should walk around alone this late at night.”

“It’s barely ten p.m., and I’m a superhero.”

Kim opened her mouth to retort, but instead sighed into a pleading smile. She reached a hand out. “Come on. Just...stay.” She took Trini’s hand.

Trini’s gaze snapped down to the point of contact. Kim’s hand was warm, hot, fervently burning into her wrist. Despite being a superhero, she felt powerless. “Fine. But if Zack starts snoring again, I’m out.”

***

The next morning, Trini was not awakened by an alarm. Instead, she was repeatedly poked in the face. She opened her eyes expecting to see her two younger brothers but was greeted by her teammates in their place. Zack crouched to her right and peered down at her. Thankfully, his head blocked the intrusive morning sun. Kim kneeled to Trini’s left, her finger still on Trini’s cheek. She abruptly withdrew it when she saw that Trini was awake.

“You assholes are lucky I didn’t punch your faces,” Trini grumbled.

“This is like the third time I’ve seen you without a hat on,” Zack teased, examining her as if she were under a microscope.

“Did you forget to shower after training yesterday or is it just your jokes that stink?”

“Damn, Crazy Girl, you are  _mean_ in the morning.” He looked over at Kim, seeking solidarity against Trini’s sass.

“She’s just a little grumpy,” Kim said, pinching Trini’s cheek. If Trini didn’t adore these two, she might have thrown them off of the cliff. And she really did adore them both, though her love for Zack was buried under layers of eye-roll inducing irritation. She worried that whatever feelings of profound loyalty and friendship she held towards Kimberly were rather rapidly becoming a little more butterflies related.

Trini pushed the thought away and got up off of the rocky floor she had slept on. “Well, today sucks already.” Her teammates rose to stand next to her.

“I thought you’d like waking up to Kimmy’s face,” Zack prodded.

Trini shot him a glare so fierce that it could have sent Goldar running.

“Come on,” Kim said, linking her arm with Trini’s. “Let’s go get doughnuts.”

The Rangers packed up their overnight bags and made sure to stomp out the campfire’s weakly smoldering embers on their way to the recently reopened Krispy Kreme. The few weeks after Rita had been tense--there had been a rumor that the Krispy Kreme would be replaced with a Dunkin’ Donuts. In California? Impossible. The town, inspired by the appearance of five mysterious and colorful vigilantes, had successfully petitioned Krispy Kreme into rebuilding, remodeling, and reopening.

Once they got to the doughnut shop, they grabbed their favorite table, the new booth in the back corner of the store. While the others selected their breakfast-desserts of choice, Trini went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and freshen up. As she was spitting her toothpaste into the sink, the door swung open behind her.

“They’ve got one devil’s food left and it’s mine,” Kim’s voice taunted.

Trini went into attack mode instantly, splashing water over her lips, zipping her toiletry case, and charging towards the door. She barreled into Kim, trying to shove her out of the way, but Kim grabbed her by the arms. Trini grabbed back. The two almost threw down right then, at eighty-thirty a.m. in a Krispy Kreme, but a heroic employee emerged from the back room with a fresh tray of delicious dark chocolate doughnuts. The girls glanced at each other, then at the doughnuts, and back, finally releasing their vice grips on each other’s arms.

They rejoined the boys at the counter. Billy had gotten two frosted sprinkle doughnuts, one strawberry and one chocolate. Zack ordered an eclair and two regular glazed. Jason, ever the dad, got himself two powdered cake doughnuts and a box of doughnut holes to share with the other unfortunate souls trapped in detention.

Trini ordered two of the fresh chocolate doughnuts and a small bag of assorted doughnut holes. She saved the little bag as she’d found that the walk to school was much more pleasant with doughnut holes to snack on and Kim by her side to share them.

The group approached the school just as Kim popped the last blueberry doughnut hole in her mouth, joking that she was getting her breakfast serving of fruit.

When they turned into the main hallway, a redhead in a green and white windbreaker flagged them down at the water fountain.

“Hey,” the stranger said. “You guys wouldn’t happen to know where I could find, uh, detention, would you?”

“Sure,” Jason said, placing his hand on the redhead’s shoulder. “We’re headed there right now.”

“Oh man, I’m so glad I ran into you all. I’m Tommy, Tommy Oliver. Hey, are those doughnuts?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dash of Jealous Kim, and by "a dash" I mean an entire chapter.

Kimberly Hart considered herself a friendly person. She made an _effort_ when she met new people. Granted, the old Kimberly Hart, the queen bee with an agenda, might not have bothered maintaining connections that didn’t directly benefit her social standing, but the new Kimberly, the Pink Ranger, cared very much about a particular group of people whom she thought of as her best and truest friends. She was loyal to them and protective as hell, which was why she believed she found Tommy Oliver so pointedly annoying.

Tommy had been assigned the seat behind her in detention, but when the teacher left the room she had taken the opportunity to switch to the seat directly behind Trini. Tommy had handed her a piece of paper folded into a neat little square, and Trini had smiled when she opened it. More than smiled. She had grinned. Beamed, even. Kim had been ignoring her homework in favor of furiously seething, but she still managed to notice how beautiful Trini’s smile was. Kim had seen that expression twice before, once when she’d dueled Trini over the last piece of a pastry and again just after Rita had been dispatched into space.

Trini had stayed over at Kim's house the weekend after the attack on their town, and it was the first time they’d really spent together alone since the battle. Kim’s parents were staying overnight in the city after some charity event, but Kim wasn’t enthusiastic about the prospect of sleeping in a house alone. She’d considered asking the whole team, but then she’d remembered that an all-night Ranger Rager might leave the house looking like a fraternity on Saint Patrick’s Day. She’d waited to text Trini until 8:30 that night, certain that she wouldn't come because of her parents or her brothers or plain apathy. Trini had replied three minutes later by ringing the Hart house’s doorbell.

“Thank god the Krispy Kreme is twenty-four hours,” Kim had said when she saw Trini at the door holding up a bag of doughnuts.

They had watched a movie and fallen asleep on the dark brown leather couch in the living room. Well, Kim had fallen asleep, and Trini had spent ten minutes trying to gently untangle herself from Kim’s cuddly koala arms before giving up and waking her. According to Trini, Kim had slurringly insisted on snuggling on the couch “just for a lil bit.”

“Or you could go upstairs to your bed where there are blankets and personal space,” Trini had said dryly.

Kim had dragged herself up off the couch, displeased to have been displaced from her very comfortable position in Trini’s lap. Still half asleep, she’d grabbed Trini’s hand and pulled on it, encouraging her to get off the couch, too.

They’d gone upstairs and promptly collapsed on Kim’s bed. Just as Kim was drifting back into sleep, she’d felt something brush her arm.

“Sorry,” Trini had mumbled.

Kim had fought the heaviness her eyelids long enough to open her eyes for a fleeting moment. “Trini,” she’d whispered. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Trini had, much to Kim’s surprise, made no sarcastic comment in reply. Kim still wondered if she had imagined--dreamed--that sweet smile. In the morning, Trini had been gone, but she’d left a note saying her mother had called and told her to come home.

Now some short-and-fluffy-haired ginger jock was getting Trini to smile twenty minutes after meeting her. And if spending detention in the same room as Tommy weren’t punishment enough, Jason had invited her to hang with them in the afternoon. The six of them roamed the half-shredded streets of Angel Grove and got to know the new kid. Tommy had just transferred from a private school, and she was in detention because of what she referred to as a “technicality” on her transcript regarding academic probation.

“My old teachers and I had differing philosophies on homework. They considered it mandatory and I thought of it more as kindling,” Tommy said, kicking a piece of displaced asphalt.

It turned out Tommy had just tried out for the school’s soccer team the night before. And, because the universe evidently wanted to bring Kimberly’s blood to a rapid boil, Tommy’s tryout had been so good that she’d also been asked to join the football team as their second-string kicker.

“Uh, Kimberly?” It was Billy.

Kim had no idea how long he’d been there--or how long she’d been walking twenty feet behind the rest of the group. “Hey, what’s up?” She tried for nonchalance.

“Why are you walking back here?”

“Nothing,” she replied, looking around at the asphalt patches and wooden scaffolding set up outside of the business on the other side of the street. She had already forgotten that Billy was walking with her when she turned and saw him again. “What?” She asked, disoriented, as if he had just asked her to graph the quadratic curve of a Pringle.

“I asked you why you were walking back here without us.”

“Just...taking in the view.” A bent stop sign, a fallen traffic light, a building missing its top.

“Well, we were taking a vote on what to do for lunch. Zack and Trini want to go make sandwiches at my house since its closest, but Jason wants to go to his house. You’re the tie breaker.”

Kim gave him a questioning look. She’d counted a crowded group of six. “How’s that?”

“Tommy doesn’t have a preference and, uh, I voted for Jason’s,” Billy explained, a blush fleeting over his cheeks. “He said he wanted to barbecue chicken, but that would take an hour plus fourteen extra minutes of walking just to get there.”

“We should get him an apron that says ‘Grill Sergeant,’” Kim mumbled.

Billy scrunched up his face at her remark. “If we had ranks, Jason would be the general. I’d want to be the Major. No--Admiral, like my dad wanted to be.”

Kim smiled at him. The concept of anyone being this positive directly following detention eluded her.

“Admiral Cranston.” He straightened his back and puffed out his chest. “I like the sound of that.”

“It suits you,” she agreed. She looked ahead to the rest of the group. “Let’s go to your place. I don’t really want to deal with the mayhem twins when they're hungry.”

Billy jogged ahead to inform the rest of the group of Kim’s decision.

As usual, Billy’s mother was thrilled to see them, especially Jason. She seemed to be the only person in town who wasn’t furious with him for getting kicked off of the football team. Mrs. Cranston informed them that chocolate chip cookies were due out of the oven in two minutes, and Billy nodded proudly at Kim in support of her prophetic lunch decision. Jason had promised (insisted) that he would barbecue for them another time (dinner that evening).

Lunch at Billy’s was relatively uneventful aside from the divine cookies that his mother provided. Afterwards, Tommy thanked them for inviting her to join, and said that she ought to get home.

“I’m sure my mom is waiting for me,” she said as she took off towards the opposite side of town.

For the Rangers, it was time for Saturday afternoon training.

***

“On your right!” Kim shouted, alerting Zack to an incoming putty punch just in time. The team was taking turns battling in trios, and the Black, Red, and Pink Rangers were up.

Jason was dealing with two putties who had flanked him. He moved fast in his red suit, kicking one away just in time to roundhouse the other.

Zack and Kim fought back to back in their own armor, facing off against three of Alpha’s constructs. They were working on defending, specifically throwing fewer punches and dodging more oncoming attacks.

“Hey, Zack,” Kim said, lowering her voice to a normal speaking volume, “what do you think of Tommy?”

“Hmm, not my type,” Zack replied jokingly.

“That’s not what I _meant_ ,” Kim said, slugging a putty in the head on the last word.

Zack leapt in the air and kicked each of the putties in front of him in the chest. He landed back in his fighting stance. “She seems nice enough.”

“What?” Kim replied in disbelief, narrowing avoiding a jab aimed at her torso.

“I said she seemed nice.” He ducked under a punch. “And you sound like you wanna stab me.”

“No, I--” She sweep-kicked a putty’s legs out from underneath it. “--It’s just weird having someone else in the group.”

“Sure,” Zack said, crushing one of the putties with a hammer arm, “but she’s not in the group. We just had lunch.”

Kim knew that she was fixating on something unimportant. It made no sense to get so angry at Tommy. She was new at school. She couldn’t even find her way to detention! And like Zack said, she seemed nice enough. So why did Kim feel like something was changing?

Kim nearly took a cross-body cut to the cranium while lost in thought, but she rolled out of the way just in time for her opponent to smash its fist into Zack’s head instead.

He stumbled forward, falling on his face. He didn’t move. His armor stayed up, but he was knocked unconscious by the hit.

Alpha-5 shut down the training simulator. Jason was mid-punch when his target collapsed into rubble.

Jason and Billy rushed for Zack, picking him up under the shoulders and carrying him off to the ship’s med bay. Zack would be fine in a little while, but Zordon and Alpha insisted that every injury be thoroughly examined. Given how often the Rangers were hurt during training, the 65-million-year-olds had cut out quite a job for themselves.

Kim dropped her armor and sat down at the edge of the pit. She was wiping off the sweat on her face with her equally sweaty forearm when Trini sat down next to her.

“He deserved it,” Trini said. “Left his side wide open.”

“Well, I guess that’s why we’re practicing defense,” Kim replied with a little more bite than she had intended.

“If you’re pissed ‘cuz you guys lost--”

“I’m not,” Kim cut in, cementing her assertion with a quick, tight smile. “You wanna spar while we wait for the boys to come back?”

“You just went two rounds against a double squad.”

“So?” Kim challenged.

Trini’s eyes scanned Kim over twice. “Did you have coffee this morning?”

“We had breakfast together,” Kim shot back, as if it were an answer. She saw a chance for a cheap shot, and her fighting fatigue gave way to pettiness. “I guess you’ve been distracted.”

“Me?” Trini scoffed. “I’m not the one who just let my teammate--”

The look on Kim’s face was enough to inspire instant silence. She was tired from training, irritated with her friends, and angry at Trini most of all. Kim guessed, based on Trini’s sudden withdrawal, that she wasn’t hiding those feelings particularly well.

“Fine, I’ll leave you alone,” Trini said quickly. She stood, leaving Kim on the ground.

As Trini walked away, Kim thought she saw something fluttering out of the corner of her eye. To her right, a piece of paper folded up into a neat square had fallen on the rocks. Kim turned and saw Trini looking back over her shoulder. Then Trini broke their eye contact and continued to walk away.

Kim unfolded the paper, ripping one of the creases just a little.

_Takeout later? -T_

For a moment, Kim felt her blood pressure rise. This must have been the note Tommy had given Trini in detention--except that it was written in Trini’s handwriting. And in Kim’s hand. And at that moment, Kim realized exactly why she disliked Tommy so much.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grill Sergeant Jason prepares for a Ranger gathering only to have Kim and Trini drop out in favor of a girls' night. Trini tries to get Kim to open up. And seriously, what's up with Tommy Oliver?

After training, Jason made a stop by the local Whole Foods to pick up everything he would need to host the Ranger team for dinner. He filled a basket with fresh chicken, potatoes, and bell peppers (only orange and yellow--Billy hated the smell of the red ones when they were cooking, and Trini thought the green ones were slimy). His mental inventory told him that he had enough onions and cheese to prepare for the evening, but he decided to buy extra just in case. If he ran out of cheese, Billy would never forgive him.

Jason stood in the refrigerated section of the story examining the cheese options. His go-to was plain old Parmesan, but Kim firmly stood by Asiago. He got a small wedge of each.

As Jason made his way to the checkout, he noticed a familiar figure in the cereal aisle. Tommy was standing still with a hand on her chin in contemplation, her stare boring into the many cereal boxes in front of her. Jason wasn’t exactly in a hurry.

“Hey, Tommy!” He said, waving.

“Honey nut!”

“Uh...” Jason looked around to see if there was someone else in the aisle to whom Tommy might be speaking.

“Gotta go with the honey nut,” Tommy repeated, pointing at a box of Cheerios on the shelf.

“Uh, right,” Jason agreed. “They’re the best.”

Tommy grabbed two boxes, one honey nut and one plain. “My mom only eats the regular ones. Like she _only_ eats plain Cheerios.”

Jason, rarely at a loss for words, had no idea how to continue the conversation. Fortunately, Tommy cut it short.

“Speaking of, she’s waiting for me. See ya!” Tommy took off with an odd little salute.

Jason frowned as he watched her run down the aisle towards the checkout lines. His phone buzzed twice in quick succession. The messages were from Trini.

5:06 Trini: hey has kim been acting weird to you?

5:06 Trini: like weirder than usual

He paused before responding. As team leader, it was his job to keep tabs on his teammates’ moods, especially if it was affecting training. He had been more than a little worried about Kim’s performance at that day’s session. Granted, Zack wasn’t the best defender, but Kim wasn’t usually one to let her guard down long enough for an enemy to land an easy shot. He typed out a reply.

5:07 Jason: Yeah, I was wondering what was up at training

Trini’s response came almost immediately.

5:07 Trini: same

5:07 Trini: if its cool with you i think were gonna do a girls night. save me some barbecue tho

As the leader of a superhero squad, Jason was glad to see his team members taking an interest in each others’ well-being. As a high school junior who had recently been kicked off the football team and lost most of his social standing, he was disheartened, but only for a moment. Instead of putting back the extra food, he thought he might invite Tommy over. He ran to the end of the aisle and scanned the four checkout lines for her bright orange hair, but she was gone. No way she had gone through Whole Foods’ checkout lines that quickly.

By the time he had waited, paid, and gotten back to his truck (newly fixed up and road sanctioned), he had four messages. Three from Trini--

5:10 Trini: jason

5:13 Trini: ?

5:18 Trini: aight im gonna assume weve been kicked out of ranger club [peace sign]

\--and one from Kim:

5:19 Kim: can’t make it tonight, sorry :(

He reassured Trini that they were most definitely not kicked out, but he told her that he would “have to think about” saving her some leftovers. He also let Kim know that her company would be missed, but “no worries.” Jason wondered how in the universe he had become responsible for four other teenage superheroes.

***

Kim jumped off the couch when she heard the doorbell.

“It’s like having my own personal delivery girl,” Kim said when she saw Trini standing on her front porch with a bag that no doubt contained deliciously greasy noodles. Kim reached for the bag. “Gimme.”

Trini pulled it out of her reach. “Nuh-uh. Not ‘til you tell me why you let Zack catch one in the ribs at training today.”

“I got distracted,” Kim said dismissively.

“You don’t get distracted.”

Kim sighed. “Just come inside.”

Trini followed her to the left out of the foyer into the cozy living room. Everything in Kim’s house was warm: the furniture was well broken in, the lamp was the same shade of gold as the ornamental buttons on the arms of the old couch. Trini’s favorite part of the room was the dark brown accent wall that framed the bay window that faced out onto the front lawn. She sat on the couch, looking to her right out the window. Normally she didn’t like to look outside at night, but she was a superhero now, and the only creature that had scared her in the weeks since was now floating through space.

“Which one’s mine?” Kim asked from the kitchen, the next room over. Trini wasn’t sure when Kim had managed to snatch the bag from her, but she was nonetheless determined to get Kim to talk to her. She didn’t like talking about feelings, but she felt safe with the other Rangers. They had shown her that she could open up without getting hurt. She had to know why Kim didn’t feel the same.

“Rice noodles,” Trini called back.

Kim had a strange habit of eating takeout food off of plates instead of straight out of the container, but she respected Trini’s affection for the little white boxes. Kim returned to the couch with Trini’s box of fried rice and her own plate of spicy rice noodles.

Trini gave up on direct confrontation and decided to try easing into the conversational part of the evening. “You know they just opened an Indian place right next door to Thai Central? We should try that next time.”

Kim shook her head, shoving more than a single bite of noodles into her mouth with her chopsticks. “No way. My mom would kill me if I ever brought home someone else’s Indian cooking. She makes naan like, twice a week. Minimum.”

“You been holding out on me, Hart?”

Kim scoffed and rolled her eyes at the teasing.

Trini shrugged. “I get good Mexican food at home all the time. Doesn’t mean I don’t eat at Taco Bell.” 

“Taco Bell is awful.”

“Yep.”

They fell into a strange silence. Trini’s interest in light conversation had faded quickly when she noticed that Kim had put her plate down on the deep brown coffee table and was now sitting very straight, her hands on her knees. Her breathing had taken on an odd rhythm, Trini noticed, thanks to both the super hearing and the apparent empathetic telepathy the Rangers had developed.

Trini followed suit, placing her fried rice carefully on the table. While slowly chewing her way through her most recent bite, she asked, “What’s up?”

“Um...” Kim started, “I need to talk to you.”

“We’re talking right now.”

“About something.” Kim added, already exasperated. “And can you stop that?”

Trini stopped chewing abruptly and gulped down her food. She quarter-turned to face Kim. “All ears.”

“Okay, five minutes ago you were pushing me to talk to you, but now I want to talk and--and you’re making fun of me?”

Trini recognized Kim’s defensive inflection habits. When she got mad, she stumbled over small words and put heavy emphasis on her consonants. “Kim,” Trini said calmly, placing her hand on Kim’s thigh.

Kim looked down at Trini’s hand and took a deep breath. “Sorry. Things have been...weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Trini agreed. “A couple weeks ago, we saved the world. Kinda by accident, if you think about it--”

“That’s not what I mean,” Kim said, visibly struggling to get her words out. Her mouth twitched into a smile. “Things have been weird...with us.”

“Us?” Trini asked. “Like the team?”

Kim looked at Trini like she’d just sprouted scales on her face. “No. _Us_.”

Trini was suddenly very interested in the embossed gold border on the coffee table. “Weird how?”

“I--” Kim cut herself off. “I don’t know. Sorry.”

Trini knew that Kim had something else to say, but she had felt her shift gears, putting their conversation in park.

“Do you wanna watch a movie?”

The question caught Trini off guard. She looked at Kim again, noticing the tension in her jaw and the corners of her mouth, forced upward in a semblance of a smile. Trini felt her own eyebrows press together. She picked up her fried rice and sat back on the couch, tacitly agreeing to put the conversation on hold.

***

Tommy slipped through the door of the mobile home. She was back after curfew--not that her mother would mind. She’d been walking around downtown Angel Grove, taking in the sight of the torn up streets and the lingering smell of burning rubber. The eerie silence out there beat the perpetual faint beeping that seemed to fill the mobile home.

Tommy opened one of the cupboards above the sink and added the two boxes of cereal she’d picked up at the store to the collection almost a dozen boxes of plain Cheerios. She opened the fridge to find a single tomato, some butter, and a leftover salad that had to be at least a week old. She would dispose of the rotting lettuce in the morning.

She entered her mother’s room and the beeping grew louder. A monitor to the right of her bed showed her vitals. Heart rate low, as usual. Blood oxygen level up by point-two percent from the morning. No meaningful changes.

Tommy sat on the edge of the bed and picked up her mother’s hand. “Hey, Mom. I stopped by the store and picked up some more Cheerios. One box for me, one for you. I promise I’ll eat something green tomorrow.” She thought about the salad sitting in the fridge and cringed. “Or something red, maybe. Some Swedish fish, probably.”

Tommy dropped her mother’s hand back onto the comforter and stood, her fists clenched at her sides. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m gonna find it. I’m gonna find that crystal thing and bring you back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's now an official Outline for the rest of this story. Get ready kids it's gonna be a ride


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter brought to you by my recent song obsession, "Stay" by Zedd ft. Alessia Cara*
> 
> You guys don't mind a long installment, do you? 
> 
> Trini discovers an unexpected secret about Kim and kind of accidentally stays over at her house. 
> 
> Jason and Zordon have a Red Ranger heart-to-heart, and Zack finds himself awake at 9 am to meet none other than Tommy Oliver for doughnuts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos!

Trini blinked awake. There was a light coming from somewhere. She never fell asleep with the lights on. As her eyes focused, she discovered that the light was coming from the television.

 _Kimberly, are you still watching?_ Netflix wanted to know.

Trini tried to reach her phone on the coffee table, but she couldn’t really move. She became aware of a heaviness on her left side. Her arm was numb, and her fingers tingled as she tried to wake them up.

“Give the monster honey.”

It took Trini a moment to recognize the voice as Kim’s. They’d fallen asleep on the couch, and Trini suspected that Kim was still dreaming. Somehow, Kim had ended up half on top of Trini. She waggled her fingers again.

“The bees won’t go to history,” Kim said, shifting her shoulders and digging her elbow into Trini’s stomach.

“Ow. Okay, Kim?” Trini tried gently. No answer. “Kimberly?”

“No no no, they don’t want to see the circus.”

“What?” Trini whispered to herself. She made a mental to note to ask Kim about this bee circus dream. Trini attempted to free her left side from under Kim once again, using all of her core strength to sit up as quickly as she could. Kim, unfazed, simply slid down from Trini’s chest and landed softly in her lap. At least Trini had managed to grab her phone from the table.

She checked the time: 10:38.

Trini swore quietly, reaching to drop her phone back on the table. She started jostling Kim's shoulders. “Hey, Kim, wake up.”

Finally, her hostess came out of her dream, evidently just as disoriented as Trini. Kim sat up and squinted at her surroundings, spotting the television first and Trini second.

“Hmm, you’re comfy,” Kim said, nestling into Trini’s chest.

“I’m also dead if I don’t get home in the next twenty minutes,” Trini replied, pushing Kim up off of her.

“Shit, sorry,” Kim said, straightening her tank top and running a hand through her hair. “I’ll drive you.”

“I’d probably get there faster if I ran,” Trini offered.

Kim gave her a look like she’d just suggested walking to Mars rather than her own house. “No way, I’ll take you. I mean, I’ll drive you.”

“Whatever you say, bee circus,” Trini muttered.

“What?” Kim hissed.

“You talk in your sleep,” Trini said with a condescending smirk.

Kim gave Trini a taste of her own side eye before getting up to get her keys. Trini noticed that the other girl’s jeans had slipped just a little, her hipbones peeking up over the waistband. When Kim lifted her arm to move her hair again, Trini noticed something (not that she was staring. That would have been rude. _So_ rude).

“Do you have a tattoo?”

Kim froze.

***

Jason had decided to spend the night in the ship. He did so occasionally. His father barely said two words to him at home, even at family dinners. Jason couldn’t very well explain that he had been the red-suited superhero who’d saved the man from going up in flames along with his burning wreck of a car, though he guessed that might have helped mend whatever fissure had formed between them. In the month since the fight with Rita, the alien cots on the ship had started to feel more like home to Jason than his own bed.

Zordon was also always around to talk. Noncorporeal wall-beings didn’t need sleep, fortunately, and Jason often spent his nights on the ship seeking advice from the former Red Ranger.

“It’s my fault, Zordon,” Jason said. He stood in the front of the morphing grid room, rubbing his hands over his face.

“No, Jason,” Zordon started, “your team respects you.”

“Sure,” Jason laughed. “Zack's gotten knocked out twice this week because he won't practice the combos, Trini glares at me like I’m the one who tried to tear up Angel Grove, and Kim will barely even talk to me anymore!” His shout ricocheted off the chrome walls of the chamber.

“Leading a team is difficult, Jason.”

Jason inhaled deeply, holding his breath for a second. “Leading your friends is harder.”

“Of course,” Zordon said. “You care about them.”

Jason nodded, closing his eyes tightly.

“Zack has been distracted, yes. Kim, too. Trini--well, she glares at everyone like that. Almost everyone.”

Jason cocked his head. “You’ve noticed too.”

Zordon’s giant digital head nodded.

“I don’t know how to help them. Any of them.”

“They will come to you when they are ready. If they need.”

Jason shook his head. “You’re probably right, Zordon.”

***

“Kim?”

She looked up at Trini, eyes widening as she processed the question. “What? No. I’m seventeen.”

Trini crossed her arms. “What’s that on your hip?”

Kim lifted the right side of her shirt’s hem expose reveal her hip again.

“See? No tattoo.”

Trini raised an eyebrow and nodded her head towards Kim’s left side in a silent question.

Kim scoffed, taking a few steps so that she was right in front of the couch again. She pulled her shirt up just a little, showing off the very top point of the design. Trini let out a small gasp and had to stop herself from reaching out and touching the black mark. She looked up at Kim, whose eyes were darting between every piece of furniture in her living room.

“What is it?” Trini asked quietly, disrupting the dense silence like a single drop of rain falling into a pond.

“Triangle,” Kim answered, suddenly feeling like she was floating. _What is it?_ In one of her dreams, the floors had been water, and she’d drifted to a shore, except the shore had actually been the pit, and Trini had been there. They’d started sparring--even Kim’s subconscious was determined to perfect that week’s combos--but Trini had pinned her to the ground in two moves. First a sweep, knocking her over. Then a shove to the shoulders, pushing her back down to the floor of the cave. _That’s not right_ , Kim said breathlessly. _Guess I forgot the combo,_ Trini said. _What is it?_

Kim very much wished that the ocean would flood her living room and carry her away in its current. Then maybe Trini wouldn’t notice her blushing violently.

“Can I...?” Trini pointed to the band of Kim’s jeans.

With her thumb, Kim pulled the waistband down just enough to reveal the tattoo. It wasn’t just a triangle, technically speaking; it was a Penrose Triangle, an optical illusion whose sides overlapped impossibly.

Trini's fingertips brushed over the raised black lines. “Who knew you were a math nerd, huh?” She teased half-heartedly. She could hardly deliver a proper jab while looking at Kim’s bare skin, let alone touching it. “Did it hurt?”

“Yeah,” Kim laughed. 

Of course it had hurt. _What kind of question was that?_   Trini thought, kicking herself for saying the first thing that popped into her head. Her phone went off, reminding her that she was supposed to be on her way home. She groaned.

Kim’s hand acted inhumanly fast, grabbing Trini’s wrist as she reached for the insidiously jingling device.

Her eyes locked onto Trini’s. “Stay?”

Trini slowly pulled her wrist out of Kim’s grasp, holding eye contact as she answered her phone. “Hola, Mami...No, I told you, I’m staying over at a friend’s.”

Trini’s mother spoke loudly enough that Kim could hear her. _“You most certainly did not. Do I know this friend? Katrina Gabriella, are you with a boy?_ ”

Kim stifled a laugh.

Trini rolled her eyes. “No, Mom.”

Her mother let out a long sigh. _“Fine, mija. But don’t you dare come back pregnant--”_

“Mom!”

_“Be back in time to watch your brothers. Your father and I have dinner plans.”_

“Yeah, will do.” She hung up and turned to Kim. “Now that you’ve gotten me in trouble...”

“Sorry,” Kim cringed.

“You owe me.”

Kim held up a hand. “I promise to buy you doughnuts in the morning.”

“Not good enough." She crossed her arms over her chest. "You gonna talk, or what?”

Kim huffed. She cursed her hand for grabbing Trini’s arm. In that moment, the part of her that wanted to be closer to Trini had utterly overwhelmed her inhibitions. Now she’d managed to regain a shred of self-control, and she wasn’t about to tell Trini everything. “Doughnuts for a week?” She suggested meekly.

Trini sighed. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

***

Zack wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten roped into meeting the new kid for breakfast on a Sunday. It was the only day he could sleep in (at least it would be, if he didn’t consistently miss two days of school a week for that very purpose). Tommy had sent Zack a Facebook message asking if they might be able to hang out sometime, and Zack had actually replied. He almost never used Facebook. In fact, he’d deleted his account three times and only recently made a new one after the Power Rangers had complained that they couldn’t tag him in photographs.

Somehow, he’d been online when Tommy had sent the message. They’d ended up decided on 9:00 at Krispy Kreme. And there Zack sat, at 9:06, awaiting his imminent company. He hadn’t bothered to shower--it wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone--and he was wearing the same clothes that he’d been wearing when he fell asleep on top of the abandoned train car by the mine. If anybody was going to have the audacity to make morning plans with him, they ought to be prepared for the consequences.

Tommy arrived at 9:08, two minutes before Zack would have bailed. “Sorry I’m late,” she said as she jogged past the counter to the booth in the back corner.

“Nah, ‘s fine,” Zack replied.

“So this is the famous Angel Grove Krispy Kreme,” she said, sitting across from him.

“Actually, the old one was a few streets over. They decided to rebuild in a slightly less burned down part of town.”

“I see. Doughnuts?” Tommy proposed.

Zack jumped up and nodded in agreement, gesturing for Tommy to go ahead first.

There were a few people in front of them, but Krispy Kreme was nothing if not efficient in getting doughnuts in boxes and customers out the door. A businessman left in a hurry, balancing a dozen glazed a cardboard carrier with four cups of coffee stuck in it while trying to talk on the phone.

A young boy and his mother ordered next. Just as the little boy pointed enthusiastically to a rainbow sprinkle doughnut, the door to the shop opened and Kim walked in.

“If it isn’t Miss Pretty in Pink,” Zack said.

“Zack.” Kim reprimanded him for hinting at her secret identity.

“What? It’s a nice top,” he said, pointing to her shirt.

“Hey, Kimberly,” Tommy said with a small wave.

“Hey, Tommy,” Kim returned, doing a double take when she realized that Zack was hanging out with someone who wasn’t a Ranger.

It was Tommy’s turn to order, and Zack took it as a chance to bother Kim some more. “So, what brings you to this five star dining establishment at this hour?”

“Oh, you know,” Kim replied.

“Uh, no, I don’t. That’s why I asked.”

“Next!” Called the doughnut maestro behind the counter. Zack didn’t have a regular order, but he typically got an eclair if they were fresh.

Kim stepped up to order after him while he lingered, biting into his eclair lasciviously. “Can I get four devil’s food and a couple doughnut holes to go?”

“That’s a lot of doughnuts for one girl,” Zack said through his bite of pastry.

“Not if she’s a superhero who burns calories twice as fast as a normal high schooler.”

An ear-to-ear grin spread across his face. “Or if she’s sharing with another superhero, perhaps one with a preference for the color yellow?”

Kim opened her mouth to reply but clamped it shut.

“You’re wearing her jacket,” Zack explained. He grinned and pointed to her neck. “And a scarf for some reason...”

She slapped his hand away. “I was cold.”

“Last I checked, Angel Grove was in  _California_.”

“Whatever, Zack. Enjoy your weird breakfast date,” she snapped, claiming her bags of doughnuts and whirling towards the door.

Tommy called to him from the booth. “Yo, you were right about these eclairs, dude. They’re amazing.”

“I know, right?” Zack said, smiling to himself as he watched Kim leave.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim and Trini's breakfast gets interrupted by an urgent text from Jason regarding a new threat.
> 
> Plot plot plot--more Trimberly to come, promise!

Kim power walked back to her house, determined to put as much distance between herself and Krispy Kreme as possible. Zack hadn’t exactly been wrong about Trini being at her house, but she’d worn the scarf because even California had brisk mornings. She’d accidentally grabbed Trini’s jacket off of the hook before leaving in a hurry. Obviously. He was always irritating, but he had gone too far with his teasing by prying into her personal life. She would die for any of the Rangers in a second, but she wasn’t comfortable sharing details about herself with them. For all they’d been through together, they had only been friends for a few weeks.

She had no idea how they would react if they knew about what she’d done to the designated uncool kids back in middle school, outcasts and loners, Trinis and Billys and Zacks. Or what she’d done to the other freshman girls who had asked her about cheerleading, who showed up in the gym only to learn that tryouts had been the day before. What she’d done to her alleged best friend, Amanda. Kim knew she had a nasty streak, but she had to change that about herself before she could talk to the other Rangers about it. She looked forward to the day she could talk about Kim the Mean Girl, Kim the Queen Bee, Kim the Meanest Person Ever, as if she were another person entirely.

As she approached her doorstep, Kim forced thoughts of her past actions down. She put on a smile and unlocked the door.

Trini was awake--or at least she had been awake. She had evidently made it down the stairs from Kim’s room and crashed on the couch.

Kim dropped the bags of doughnuts on the coffee table next to Trini’s ear, jolting her houseguest awake.

“If you broke my doughnut, you’re buying me a new one,” Trini grumbled, sitting up.

Kim plopped down on the couch next to her. “Good thing I bought you two.”

Trini opened one of the bags and cast a sidelong glance at her couch buddy that said you’re off the hook, but just barely.

“Sleep okay?” Kim asked, reaching for the other bag and popping a doughnut hole in her mouth.

“Mmm,” Trini replied through a mouthful of devil’s food.

Kim felt her phone vibrate in her--Trini’s--jacket pocket. She hoped that if she kept the jacket on without drawing attention to herself Trini wouldn’t notice. Maybe she’d even accidentally leave the jacket at Kim’s. She would return it eventually. Probably.

9:37 Pain in the Ass: say hi to trini for me ;) ;)

Kim scoffed.

“Who’s ‘Pain in the Ass?’”

“Uh,” Kim hurried to put her phone back in her-- _Trini’s_ \--pocket. “Nobody. Zack.”

Trini raised an eyebrow but let the matter drop in favor of focusing on her second doughnut.

Kim’s phone vibrated again. “I swear, I am gonna punch him in the--”

9:38 WonderBoy: Come to the ship. Urgent.

“Jason needs us,” Kim said, standing.

“Can I finish my doughnut?”

“On the way. Let’s go.” Kim hustled towards the front door, Trini groaning two steps behind her. Kim opened the front door and turned to close it but saw that Trini was still inside. She was eyeing the coat hooks to the right of the door.

“Kimberly,” Trini said sternly.

Kim looked down at the bright yellow leather jacket that was zipped over her own chest. “Just grab mine. Come on, we gotta go.”

Trini grabbed the brown bomber off of its hook and stepped out to join Kim on the front porch. “You’re gonna give that back, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Kim breathed as she turned her key in the lock. She paused, unlocked the door again, and threw her scarf over one of the hooks. Then she grabbed Trini’s hand and pulled her towards the car.

***

“What do you mean you lost the green power coin?” Kim shouted at Alpha-5.

The five Rangers had gathered in the morphing grid room on Jason’s orders. All of them but Trini stood at the front of the room while Alpha explained the vague details of what had happened. Trini had sat down on the stairs as soon as she entered the room. She had to admit, seeing Kim get all riled up was almost enough to make Trini want to engage with the conversation.

Alpha-5 backed away from Kim, hands up. “I did not lose it. It’s just gone!”

“What want to bet that the same person did this?” Zack said, holding up the deflated pink corpse of Kim’s exercise ball from the ship’s gym. “Somebody was in our ship, you guys.”

The Pink Ranger geared up to charge at Alpha-5, but Jason extended an arm in front of her. “Kimberly, it’s not Alpha’s fault.”

“Exactly!” Alpha said, raising a finger. “I’ve had 65 million years to perfect the ship’s filing system. It’s gone, and _I_ didn’t lose it. Someone took it.”

Kim let out a frustrated growl and backed down, taking a seat on the stairs next to Trini.

“Oh!” Billy exclaimed, the wheels in his brain visibly turning. “The ship’s got cameras, right?”

Alpha slumped and shrank, thumbs twiddling. “According to the security footage, there was nobody here.”

“So somebody hacked it,” Jason offered.

“Who would even want to hack a complex alien computer system that’s older than dinosaurs?” Zack asked.

Jason glanced at Billy, who was slowly raising his hand.

“Somebody not on our team,” Zack added. Billy put his hand down.

Jason rubbed his head. “Maybe it’s one of those other guys Rita was talking about.”

Billy nodded. “Somebody who wants the Zeo crystal. Good thinking, Jason.”

Trini suppressed her habit of rolling her eyes. “Great, so all we gotta do is run down the list of people who want more power. I’ll grab a phonebook.”

Jason shook his head. “No, no. Who would have an interest in the power coin specifically?”

A low, booming voice filled the grid room. “Good morning, Rangers.”

“Master Zordon!” Alpha exclaimed. “Sir, Rita’s power coin is--”

“Right here,” Zordon said as the glowing green coin materialized, suspended in the matrix in the middle of the morphing grid. “You are correct. Someone is after it.”

“Who?” Jason asked.

“Hey, why’s it doing that?” Billy said, pointing to the coin. The light coming from inside of it pulsed, glowing brighter and fading intermittently.

“I don’t know, Jason. I believe the coin is acting as a beacon. Anyone who might be searching for it would be able to hear it if they possessed the correct technology.”

“What technology?” Billy asked.

“Radio, for one,” Zordon said.

“Hang on,” Jason cut in. “So any radio or police scanner in the city could pick up this thing’s...what, distress signal?”

Zordon’s giant head nodded. “At the correct frequency.”

The Rangers were silent. Trini hadn’t been too far off when she’d suggested that their suspect list would be the size of the phone book.

“The coin is not safe here,” Zordon started. “Until we can determine who was in the ship, I suggest the coin be kept elsewhere.”

“No offense, Zordon, but I don’t want some crazy guy breaking into my mom’s house,” Zack said. He waved his hand at the large screen. “Why can’t you keep it in the wall with you?”

Zordon sighed. “Should the assailant return, there is a chance that they would be able to track the coin inside the matrix and retrieve it by force.”

“We can’t risk them destroying the ship’s generator,” Alpha-5 said.

“And shattering Zordon’s consciousness,” Jason nodded. “We’ll guard it in shifts. Keep the coin mobile.”

“Be careful,” Zordon said. “Keeping Rita’s coin close may have unpredictable effects on your own coins.”

“My coin spends plenty of time next to dangerous, powerful things,” Zack said, patting his pants pocket and flashing a cocky smile.

Billy jumped in. “I can go first.”

“You sure, Billy?” Jason asked.

“I’ll be fine, Jason,” Billy said confidently.

Jason turned so that he was addressing all of the Rangers. “Who wants to stay and guard the ship tonight?”

Kim stood up. “I can do it.”

Jason glanced around at the rest of his team expectantly.

Kim looked down at Trini with wide eyes and a small smile.

“I’m on little brother patrol, remember?” Trini said.

“Please?” Kim asked.

Trini smirked up at her, then addressed their team leader. “You remember Alex and Hector?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone who's keeping up with this! i love reading all the comments, and i appreciate knowing that people are still interested in the story. in summary, leave me comments pleeeease ^__^


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rangers take shifts guarding Rita's power coin and run into trouble. Kim and Trini guard the ship, and Tommy researches the Zeo crystal.
> 
> CW: drug mention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've suddenly got very little desire to finish my final projects (3 weeks til graduation, yikes) so have another update. Thanks to everyone who's reading, kudosing, and commenting!

Billy had been happy to volunteer for the first watch. He had been hoping for an opportunity to examine the strange artifact and compare it to what he had discovered about his own power coin. He was sure that he was close to discovering how the coins teleported into the Rangers’ pockets if they left them behind somewhere. In his basement, he had assembled everything that he expected to need for his examination of the coin. It was safely contained inside the Faraday cage that he had used to disable Jason’s tracking anklet. The signal was trapped. Nobody would be able to find it. Nobody would be able to hurt his friends with it.

The fact that it had belonged to Rita didn’t scare him. She might have technically killed him a little bit, but she was gone. Without someone to use it, what good was the coin? If he could study it, figure out how it was emitting this beacon, maybe he could shut it down for good.

He pulled up all of his files on the blue power coin. He didn’t know much, yet, but knew that the rock was made mostly out of elements not found on Earth. There was some cobalt in the coin, which Billy guessed was the source of its particular color. It was neither carbon- nor silicon-based.

What made the other power coins yellow, red, black, pink? Green? He snapped on a pair of gloves and reached into the Faraday cage with a scalpel and spatula. Just a little bit of the green rock would be enough for him to run some comparative tests.

As soon as the scalpel scraped into the surface of the stone, a piercing shriek filled Billy’s ears. He started to put on his noise canceling headphones, but the rock’s screams shorted out the tech. He dropped the headphones as they started sparking, catching on fire.

The horrible noise wouldn’t stop. Billy picked up the rock only to discover that it was vibrating faster than he could see. It was hot as a coal against his palm, and he let it tumble out of his hand onto the floor. He buzzed around the room searching for the fire blanket (his mother had gotten it off of his birthday wish list the previous year). Cautiously, he kicked the rock into the middle of the blanket, wrapping the heavy cloth around it. The blanket successfully muffled the stone’s screams long enough for Billy to sigh in relief and formulate a plan.

He had to destroy this thing.

Even though Billy hated driving, he decided that the circumstance called on him to utilize the driving lessons that Jason’s dad had been giving him. He made it to the mine in thirty-eight minutes, speeding all the way there.

He went to the crumbled remains of the glass wall where he had first found the power coins, pulling his remote control equipment out of the trunk and leaving the green coin to shriek in the passenger’s seat. Billy hoped that the half ounce of explosive putty he had would be enough.

He retrieved the coin and tacked the putty onto it between the stone and a homemade detonator. With the trigger button in his right hand, he used his left to throw the coin up into the air. When it was out of sight over the cliff, he pressed the button. The loud explosion didn’t surprise him, but he didn’t expect to hear fast footfalls approaching.

“Dude, what the hell?” Zack peeked over the rocky edge above Billy.

“Zack?”

He leapt off the cliff and landed a few steps from Billy. “You trying to kill me?”

“Rest in pieces, Rita’s power coin,” Billy said, grinning and holding up the trigger in his hand.

Something plummeted through the sky and clattered onto the rocky ground between the boys. Zack bent over and picked it up.

“Uh, no you didn’t.” Rita’s coin was perfectly intact. Even the little scrape that Billy had left with his scalpel was gone.

The unfortunate reappearance of the intact coin made Billy feel like he might cry. “I couldn’t stand it anymore, man! It wouldn’t shut up!”

“It was...talking?” Zack asked.

“Nah, more like AHHHHHHHHHHing.”

“Okay, okay, cut it out.” Zack tossed the coin in the air. “I can babysit if you want a break.”

"I thought you didn’t want to take the coin home.”

“Gotta run to the pharmacy for mom’s meds. It’s no problem,” Zack said, reaching out to pat Billy’s shoulder but receding when he noticed Billy’s stern face. “Right, sorry, man.”

Billy gathered up his remote control kit. “You sure you can handle the coin?”

“Yeah. I'll drive you home?” Zack offered, and Billy nodded enthusiastically.

***

When Jason had agreed to watch Trini’s brothers, he hadn’t expected to spend the entire time playing with action figures of himself and his friends.

“You got the blue one last time!” Alex yelled, tugging the little toy Billy away from his brother.

“No, you did!” Hector yanked it back.

Jason watched the boys squabble. “Hey, one of you guys could be the red one.”

The boys looked at each other and then shook their heads simultaneously.

“Blue is the coolest,” Alex said. Hector nodded in agreement.

“Okay,” Jason said, accepting the rejection as gracefully as he could by changing the subject. “How about some snacks?”

“Papi says no snacks before dinner,” Hector said.

Alex put his hands on his hips and imitated his father’s stern voice. “You’ll ruin your dinner, niños.”

Jason sighed. “So do you guys want snacks or not?”

The boys shared a glance again and grinned. “Yeah!” They shouted in unison.

***

6:15. Kim and Trini had been camped out in the ship for eight hours. In that time, they had sparred, listened to music, and discovered that Zordon and Alpha-5 had hooked the ship’s matrix into Netflix. Their queue consisted only of Breaking Bad and Mr. Robot. After three mind-boggling episodes of the latter show, Trini’s brain had melted into a puddle on the floor of the morphing grid room. She lay on the cold metal grates, staring at the ceiling.

“I can’t believe you made me do this,” she said.

Kim switched off the monitor and walked over so that she was standing over Trini. “I didn’t. You volunteered, remember?”

Trini rubbed her face and groaned.

“It’s better than watching Thomas the Tank Engine all afternoon.” She pulled out an old granola bar (which Trini had found in Kim’s jacket pocket earlier).

“I think I’m literally starving. Want to make up your week of doughnut debt fast and buy me pizza instead?”

“Sure, you think they deliver to alien spaceships in closed-off mines?” Kim bit into the snack bar. She could only describe the taste as stale cereal mixed with rancid caramel. Her position on pizza switched instantly. “I’m sure Zordon won’t mind if we step out for a minute.”

Trini sat up and shook her head. “One of us should stay here.”

Kim cocked her head to the side. “And is that because you’re taking your sacred Ranger duty seriously or because you don’t wanna walk?”

“Porque no los dos?” Trini said.

“Fine. You can go get your own pizza.” Kim crossed her arms over her chest.

Trini stood up and took a step towards Kim. “You volunteered, remember?” She teased in a low voice.

Kim held her ground for a moment, but Trini’s subtle, knowing smirk taunted her into submission.

Twenty minutes later, Kim returned to the ship with two pizzas in hand. “You think Zordon will be mad that I used super speed to get to the pizza place and back?”

“Technically, it’s not for personal gain. We needed the pizza to protect the ship.” Trini joined her on the stairs. She sat and opened one of the boxes to find what she believed was the most disgraceful pizza she had ever seen. “Kim,” Trini said seriously, staring into the unacceptably green pizza in front of her. “Why.”

“Why what?” Kim said, peeking over box top that Trini was holding up. “Oh, that one’s mine.”

“This is salad,” Trini said. “This is a salad on a pizza crust.”

“Spinach is a perfectly viable pizza topping,” Kim argued.

“There’s not even any sauce!” Trini exclaimed, her voice cracking in genuine disgust. 

Kim pulled her pizza box away from Trini’s horrified stare. She passed the other box to Trini, who tore open the box and sunk her teeth into a slice. Kim spoke calmly about her choice of pizza, as if it weren’t the greatest abomination Trini had ever seen. “It’s a white pizza. There’s Alfredo sauce instead. Besides, you’re one to talk.”

Trini narrowed her eyes at Kim, a look that she was sure would have been deeply intimidating if her cheeks hadn’t been full of food.

Kim raised an eyebrow playfully. “Pineapple? Really?” She prodded.

Trini tried to respond, but her rejoinder was muffled by the food in her mouth.

Kim laughed, picking up a piece of her own pizza and chomping down with a smug stare.

***

Zack wasn’t entirely sure where he was, but between the rusted metal bars and the tiny window it looked an awful lot like the inside of a jail cell.

He remembered being at the pharmacy, browsing randomly (for condoms) while waiting for his mother’s prescriptions to be filled. He remembered finding a particularly amusing box of condoms from a company that donated its proceeds to endangered species preservation. The slogans were enough to make him break out laughing in the middle of the aisle. He nearly collapsed when he read “For the sake of the horned lizard, slow down love wizard” and “When you’re feeling tender, think about the hellbender.”

He took a picture of the box and typed out the caption: “little zack shall henceforth be known as the hellbender.” Just as he was about to send it to the Rangers’ group chat, a CVS employee walked into the aisle.

“Excuse me, you can’t photograph the merchandise,” the employee said.

“Dude, have you seen these things?” Zack said pointing to the condom box and reading dramatically. “’Before it gets any hotter, remember the sea otter.’” He doubled over cackling.

The employee put his hand on Zack’s phone. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to delete that photo--”

And then Zack punched him in the face.

Back in the jail cell, Zack sat down slowly on the cot, dropping his head into his hands as he realized what he had done at the store. Still, he couldn’t remember anything about arriving at the jail.

“Shit,” he whispered to himself.

“Yeah, sounds about right,” a voice said.

Zack looked up to see a guard unlocking his cell. “Are you letting me go?” He said hopefully, standing.

“Guy’s not pressing charges,” the guard said. He turned the key in the lock but stopped short of opening the door. “But we can’t let you go until we get the results of your drug test back. You get one phone call, come on.”

Zack didn’t even remember taking a drug test. He racked his brain, but his memories were gone. He had blacked out completely. As he followed the guard out of the cell, he noticed that his right pocket felt lighter than usual. His left pocket, which had held the green power coin, was also empty. The guard led him to a payphone in the hallway. Zack asked if he could look up the number in his phone, hoping that he could check his jacket pockets for the rocks. The guard nodded and left to retrieve the jacket.

What if he had lost them? He couldn’t be a Ranger anymore if his black coin had vanished. Maybe it had decided that he wasn’t worthy, that it had made a mistake choosing him. Even if his coin did mysteriously reappear in his pocket--which was taking much longer than usual--the others would be furious with him for losing Rita’s coin. And in a jail of all places--a convicted criminal could conveniently get their hands on the coin, on more power than they could ever have imagined. Zack ran his hands through his hair, digging his nails into the back of his head while he paced in front of the payphone.

The guard returned, finally, and handed Zack his coat. He rifled through the pockets, pulling out his phone. The coins weren’t there.

“Uh,” Zack started, hesitant to tell the guard exactly what he was so frantically searching for. “I had something else in here--”

“What, those weird rocks? They’re being tested down in the lab.” The guard leaned in closer. “Look, kid, just...tell me it’s not meth.”

“What?!”

“I was a lot like you, man. Drugs, petty crime. Running around punching people in the face. Got me put in juvie a couple times, but I straightened out--”

Zack cut him off, an incredulous stare on his face. “It’s not meth. I--I don't do drugs.”

“Good kid,” the guard muttered. “Make your call.”

Zack scrolled through his contacts, instinctively searching for Jason’s number. He paused before dialing and remembered that Jason was watching Trini’s brothers. Zack had driven Billy home before going to the pharmacy; he’d been rather shaken by the failed attempt to destroy the coin and was probably napping. Kim and Trini were guarding the ship. He briefly considered calling Tommy, but he guessed that she was the sort of girl who wouldn’t be impressed by casual delinquency. Loathe as he was to interrupt whatever was going on at the ship, he dialed Kim’s number on the payphone.

***

Tommy circled a small area of the map in front of her. She had spent hours in dark net forums reading conspiracy theories about what had happened in Angel Grove. Most of them were way off, of course, lacking the context that Tommy’s mother’s books provided, but every once in a while she would dig up a useful detail about the town. She had narrowed down her search radius to a few blocks of downtown. The exact location of the old Krispy Kreme where the crystal was allegedly buried had seemingly disappeared from the internet, and she figured that asking around might set off alarms. She couldn’t very well take a shovel to a square mile of the city, so she continued narrowing her search.

The last thing she needed was for those enigmatic, masked vigilantes to find out what she was up to. It had been hard enough tracking down the Zeo crystal, and it was just her luck that it was being protected by a group of amateur superheroes. She flipped through the crusty old book to her left, returning to a page that her mother had annotated. The page showed a picture of a circle of six coins followed by a history of the myth of the Power Rangers.

Tommy remembered growing hearing stories about the group of heroes who were tasked with protecting the universe. At the time, she had wished that her mother would tell her normal bedtime stories instead of bringing her research on intergalactic mythology home with her. Now, Tommy was thankful that she remembered the stories about the rogue Ranger, Rita Repulsa, the same woman who had tried to destroy the planet. Tommy wanted nothing to do with planetary decimation, but Rita’s power coin was still out there somewhere. If it had gotten her close to the crystal, it was worth finding, and Tommy had a hunch where it was being kept.

Breaking into the Rangers’ ship hadn’t been easy. Finding the ship wasn’t too hard (there were only a few places near Angel Grove that could hide a massive alien spacecraft), but scuba diving down into the deep ravine had been a challenge. She had expected hacking into the ship to take a few tries, but she had gotten lucky. The door was wide open.

She’d borrowed an old artifact from her mother’s miniature home museum. Some research on the item had told her that it was an ancient cloaking device from the Andromeda galaxy that would only work for those whose purposes were honest and altruistic. Trusting in her desire to save her mother, Tommy had entered the ship--and found nothing. She’d torn apart every crevice--she’d even popped the exercise balls in the gym in case they held the power coin-- _nothing_.

It was infuriating, certainly, to go through such an effort and come home with empty pockets, but Tommy’s confidence was bolstered by her successful research progress. She looked up at the clock and saw that it was almost eight o’clock. She’d forgotten to eat dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all those endangered species condoms are real how wild is that


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is gay. Very, very gay. As it turns out, spending the night locked in an alien ship with your crush can lead to hysterical giggling and unexpected confessions. 
> 
> Zack gets bailed out of jail.

Kim and Trini had decided to take shifts sleeping. If somebody tried breaking into the ship again, they would be met by either the Very Sleepy Pink Ranger or the Hopelessly Wired Yellow Ranger. Trini hadn’t been able to fall asleep on either of her off shifts, so she’d spent a total of three non-consecutive hours staring at the bottom of the bunk above her. She was was settling in for another hour and a half of ponderous gazing.

Trini had been surprised to see that the beds in the ship’s sleeping bay were upholstered with simple white sheets instead of being color coordinated. After bonfires, the Rangers would usually sleep outside, but if it was cold or rainy they would migrate to the ship. Trini hadn’t expected that she would end up sleeping here as often as she did. When Alpha had first given them the tour, she had jokingly claimed the bottom bunk on the smaller wall. The others had followed suit, and Zack jumped into the bed above hers. Assuming that Kim had tacitly laid claim to the second coveted top bunk, Jason and Billy started fighting over who would get the last one. Kim had taken them all by surprise when she’d selected a bottom bunk: the bed along the big wall that was closest to Trini’s. When the team slept over in the ship, Zack often had to hiss creative combinations of swears down from his bunk to get them to stop conversing at unholy hours of the morning.

Now it was three o’clock, and Trini was wide awake and alone. She wished that she were listening to Kim chatter on about gossip or school or a recent Ranger power discovery (“I can pick up a boat, Trini. A boat. Like, a small one, but still”). Trini had fought Kim plenty of times during training and knew how fast and strong she was, so it wasn’t particularly surprising news. Trini laughed quietly when she imagined Kim trying to deadlift a tugboat. Then she imagined the intense determination in Kim’s brown eyes, the slight scowl on her lips, her glistening, muscular arms hardening and flexing.

Trini recalled a particular sparring match between them that had gone on for almost half an hour. Jason had told them that they could stop after ten minutes, but they’d continued. Neither would concede to the other no matter how heavy their limbs became. The match had ended when Kim had thrown an undefended left hook, leaving an opening at the waist for Trini to take her down. Trini, ever the non-conventional fighter, had forgone the opportunity for a well-placed kick to the stomach, opting instead to tackle Kim to the ground.

“Lazy shot, Hart,” Trini had said from on top of Kim.

Kim had only rolled her eyes and let her arms flop down next to her head. Trini’s field of vision had been speckled with little stars that grew and shrank as she breathed heavily.

At 3:06, Trini decided that her next hour and twenty-four minutes would be better spent elsewhere and leapt out of her bunk. She hit her head on the edge of Zack’s bed standing so quickly, but her accelerated healing would prevent any bruise from forming. By the time she got to the morphing grid room, she didn’t even feel the bump anymore. She was focused on something much more important. Trini knew that she was prone to being far too honest at late hours of the night, but she felt compelled to talk to Kim anyway. The Pink Ranger sat cross-legged on the floor, her armor and helmet up in case of ambush.

“Hey, Kim,” Trini said, her throat dry.

Kim’s nod in reply was strange: her head dipped down slowly, then snapped back up. “Hey,” she said with a scratchy voice. She rested her head on her hand.

“I don’t want to mess up the team,” Trini started, “so I have to tell you something. You remember that first time we all hung out and Zack said that thing about ‘girlfriend trouble?’ He was right. And then he started bugging me about you, and, well, I think I like you.” She held her breath, waiting for Kim’s reply. When none came, she continued speaking. “I get it if you think it’s weird. Like, because we’re both Rangers. I really don’t want this to screw up the team, but I also...are we okay?” Trini mostly expected Kim’s answer to break her heart, and she cursed the little part of her that refused to give up hope.

The longer the silence went on, though, the dimmer that hopeful spark became.

“Yeah, okay. It doesn’t even matter, since we--” Trini stopped talking when she saw Kim slump forward, her head sliding off her hand.

Kim had fallen asleep.

Trini rolled her eyes and knelt down in front of Kim to shake her awake by the shoulder. “Hey, no dreaming on duty.”

“Wha--?” Kim’s shot up into an upright seat, the back of her helmet colliding with the bottom of Trini’s chin and leaving a deep red mark.

Trini swore and recoiled from Kim, landing hard on her tailbone.

Once Kim had reoriented herself in wakefulness, she realized what had happened and extended a hand towards Trini’s chin. “Trini, oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine. Is it bleeding?”

“Not really,” Kim said. “What are you doing out here? Go sleep.”

Trini switched the cross of her outstretched legs and looked at the floor. “I haven’t really slept all night.”

Mechanical shuffling told Trini that Kim had retracted her armor. “Me neither,” Kim said guiltily. “Not in bed, I mean. Obviously I’m much more relaxed while guarding the ship from evil invaders.”

Trini thought about smiling in response, but the knot in her stomach tightened when her eyes met Kim’s.

***

Kim didn’t need Ranger telepathy to know that something was wrong. Trini had never been particularly good at hiding it when she was upset. Kim was more awake now that the girl she’d been thinking about all night was in the same room.

“Did you hear any of that?” Trini asked.

“Any of what?”

Trini buried her face in her hands, drawing her knees up to her chest, shrinking into herself.

Kim felt a pull in her chest that told her to go hug the other girl, but Kim restrained herself. If Trini wanted to let her in, she would do so on her own terms. Kim had learned that pushing simply didn’t work against the wall that was Trini’s emotional guard. Kim leaned back on one hand while the other fingered the hem of her old black tank top. She felt the cold metal floor through her thin pink pajama pants and resisted the urge to shiver. She wasn’t sure how long they sat in silence, but she decided to break it in the boldest way she could think of (besides tackling Trini and kissing her until neither of them could breathe).

“I had a weird dream,” Kim said.

Trini raised her head from her hands and stared deadpan at Kim. It was impossible to figure out what this girl was thinking, but Kim went on.

“So, we were here, and Alpha came in and found us watching his Netflix queue and got about as incensed as an alien android with artificially constructed emotions could.”

“Kim, that actually happened.”

Kim started giggling while she told the rest of the story. “Well, sort of. In my dream--it was really funny--Alpha was yelling about Mr. Robot but we were definitely not listening because we were making out against the wall but Alpha just kept screaming about Rami Malek and asking us if we’d started the second season--” Kim broke into hysterical laughter and rolled onto her side.

“That definitely _didn’t_ happen.” Trini said almost inaudibly. Her unfocused eyes betrayed nothing.

Kim’s laughter quieted into deep inhales and exhales as she watched Trini carefully. “And then you said something about having feelings for me.”

Trini finally looked at her, stormy eyes burning into Kim’s.

“Did...did that actually...?”

“Yeah.”

Kim sat up.

“Yeah, that actually happened,” Trini said. “You fell asleep when I started sounding like Jason giving one of his solidarity speeches.”

Kim forgot about the cold metal against her body. She didn't care that she was blushing--she just hoped that this wasn’t another dream like the dozens of others she’d had about her and Trini.

“You missed the part about Zack being a jerk of a wingman.”

Kim felt tears gathering in her eyes as alternating waves of fatigue and happiness washed over her.

“Kim? Are you crying?” Trini looked worried. Kim realized that she should probably say something.

She wiped at her eyes. “Zack is just...such an ass.” She laughed, but Trini’s expression didn’t change. “He’s been doing the same thing to me,” Kim explained.

“And that’s why you’re crying.”

“No, no, I’m tired and happy and mostly tired but also really, really happy.”

A mischievous glint appeared in Trini’s eyes. “’Cuz of what, that salad pizza?”

Kim scoffed and rolled her eyes, prepared to defend her culinary tastes, but found that it was difficult to argue in favor of green and white pizza while her mouth was busy being kissed.

Trini was a _really_ good kisser. Strangely, Kim thought, Trini’s kissing style was like her fighting style: creative, unpredictable, and forceful. She moved her mouth against Kim's slowly, but her tongue was quick as it swept across Kim's bottom lip. Kim twisted her fingers into Trini's hair, pulling just a little. Trini made a small sound that would Kim would definitely not forget (she wouldn't let Trini forget it either). 

Kim was utterly breathless just as she had been the other day when Trini had tackled her to the ground. Sensing an opportunity for revenge, Kim put her hand on Trini’s shoulder and pulled away.

“What?” Trini whispered.

Kim refused to meet her eye.

“Everything okay?”

Kim shoved Trini onto her back and pounced, straddling her waist. “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to get on top of you,” she said smugly.

The epic eye roll that Trini offered in response was definitely the most impressive one Kim had seen. A sparkling smile had replaced the usual accompanying lips-pursed-in-mild-irritation. Kim leaned down to kiss her again, the grins on both of their faces keeping the kisses short and light.

Kim felt something vibrate in her back pocket--her phone. She sat back so that she was kneeling in Trini’s lap. Trini sat up, following Kim’s lips as they moved away from her.

“One sec,” Kim said. She kissed Trini once more quickly and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “It’s Zack.”

Trini groaned and flopped back onto the ground.

Kim answered the call and put Zack on speakerphone. “Hey.”

 _“Hey, Kim! What’s up?”_ He sounded oddly chipper for someone awake at four in the morning.

“I don’t know. You called me.”

_“Right, right. So are you busy?”_

“What is this, a booty call?”

_“Please, we both know there’s only one booty call you’d answer.”_

Kim stopped herself from laughing by firmly clamping her mouth shut. Trini tried to keep from bursting, but a single snort escaped.

“Zack,” Kim started, moving to sit on the floor, “say hi to Trini.”

_“Hey, crazy girl.”_

Trini nodded at the phone. “’Sup.”

_“Oh. She--”_

“Yeah,” Kim said. “She heard you.”

In the silence from Zack’s end of the call, Kim could hear him putting the pieces together.

_“Tell Jason he owes me twenty dollars and a box of doughnuts.”_

Trini leaned towards the phone. “Tell him yourself. We’re busy.”

_“Well, I would, but--you know, don’t worry about me. I’m gonna let you two get back to ‘guarding the ship.’”_

“I think I could hear you wiggling your eyebrows just now,” Kim said.

_“Good.”_

“Hang on, Zack. Is everything okay?”

_“Hell yeah. Jason’s gonna buy me doughnuts.”_

“Right. You’re sure?”

 _“Goodnight, crazy girls,”_ Zack said just before he hung up.

Kim put her phone away. When she blinked, her eyelids felt heavy.

“So you can lift a boat but you can’t hold your eyes open?” Trini teased. “You wanna sleep for a little?”

Kim nodded.

She gestured for Kim to lie down in her lap. “I’ll make sure no one breaks in to watch any more of Alpha’s shows.”

Kim fell asleep quickly with Trini's fingers stroking her hair.

A few minutes later, Trini was asleep too.

***

Zack walked out into the cool night. “Dude, I owe you, like, a hundred doughnuts.”

Tommy followed Zack out the front door of the police station and handed him his leather jacket.

“Seriously,” Zack said, swinging his jacket on.

She shrugged, a smile spreading across her freckled face.

“Wanna hit up Krispy Kreme now?”

“I should get home,” Tommy said. “Rain check though. Definitely.”

Zack put an arm around her in a half-hug goodbye and took off towards downtown by himself. No shame in treating oneself to a doughnut after spending the night in a cell.

***

Tommy had stayed up all night reading (again), and she’d almost jumped out of her own skin when her phone lit up from Zack’s call. Of course she could bail him out, she’d said. He had been nothing but kind to her since she’d arrived in Angel Grove--more than she could say for most of the high schoolers she had met. She certainly hadn’t expected to walk into the police station and find exactly what she had been looking for.

When she’d arrived at the station, the warden at the front desk had told her that Zack would be out in a minute and that she could hang onto his rocks and jacket. Underneath Zack’s leather jacket, she’d found a flat black stone and a gold-encrusted green one. In the back of her mind, she noted that this could mean that Zack was one of the Rangers--but then she remembered that this was Zack, and she was currently bailing him out of jail, and it was probable that he had stolen both of these from someone else.

Tommy figured that stealing from a thief canceled out the crime and stuffed the green stone in her pocket. Zack had joined her a moment later.

She stood in the parking lot of the police station and watched Zack vanish across the gray horizon. She figured she should get some sleep--her head was starting to hurt. It was a sharper pain than the headaches she usually got from staying up late--maybe she should eat something? There was plenty of food back at home. She absent-mindedly brought her little crown necklace up to her lips as she often did when she was thinking. She chewed on it with her front teeth as she walked.

***

Zack was the first customer to greet the Krispy Kreme morning shift manager. It was just after six o’clock, and the sun was coming up. If he was ever awake this early, he liked to watch sunrises from the roof of his train car, but he wasn’t opposed to sitting in a comfortably heated building with an eclair in hand. He reflexively reached for his pocket, comforted that his power coin had returned to its nest. It just felt right to have one side of his jacket hanging lower than the other.

He dropped his eclair on the table when he remembered that he was supposed to be carrying a second power coin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe i managed to write another chapter during the same week that i officially finished college. also i've been low key freaking out about a sort-of-maybe-date i have tomorrow...wish me luck friends


	10. Chapter 10

Zack sprinted as fast as he could. As he ran, he dialed Kim to let her know that he would be busting into the ship in approximately seven minutes and that every Ranger should be fully clothed and preferably armored. As the dial tone blared like an alarm, Zack wondered why his instinct had been to call Kim first instead of Jason. Jason might have been named the leader by a 65 million year old wall, but Kim was much scarier. Part of him hoped that she and Trini hadn’t chosen tonight to finally get together--he really didn’t want to be the guy who walked in on two of his best friends. Kim would most definitely kick his ass, and he suspected that Trini would join her. But Kim didn’t pick up. He kept running, praying that Kim’s phone was simply on silent.

He dialed Jason next and heard a sleepy voice on the other end after two and a half rings.

_“What the hell, Zack? What time is it?”_

“Time for you to get your leaderly ass out of bed and to the ship,” Zack ordered, tacking on a “sir” afterwards that Jason elected to ignore.

_“Kim and Trini are watching it.”_

“And we have to help them!” Zack's voice was tight, his breathing heavy from sprinting.

_“...I think they can handle themselves.”_

“If I run in there and witness _handling_ of any kind, I’m suing you for emotional damages.”

_“Zack, what’s going on?”_

“I’ll explain. Just come to the ship! Bring Billy.”

A few minutes later, Zack was plummeting down the cliffside into warm water. He was thankful that the lake above the base, unlike the often cold pools scattered around the mine, always seemed to be a comfortable temperature. When he got to the door of the ship, he knocked, just in case. He didn’t hear a response. Either Kim and Trini had migrated to the beds in the sleeping bay or the new Evil Green had already gotten to them. He panicked as he considered the viability of the second option and ordered the door to slide open.

Fortunately, neither of his imaginary scenarios had come true. Both Kim and Trini were safely asleep on the floor of the morphing grid room. Zack couldn’t help but smile at the tableau. Trini had somehow fallen asleep while sitting up, her back against the cold metal of one of the morphing stations. Kim was snoring softly, her head resting on Trini’s thigh. Trini’s hand was tangled in Kim’s hair. Every part of Zack wanted nothing more than to let them be, to handle the situation without waking them, but he knew that the team would need to be together to take down Rita 2.0.

“Not so scary when you’re snuggling,” Zack murmured to himself.

He knelt down next to Trini and tried tapping her on the shoulder.

“Hey, black to yellow,” he whispered directly into her ear.

Trini hardly even moved. Of course she was deep in a REM cycle when Zack had to wake her up for a potentially planet-threatening emergency. He fully expected to be punched the second her eyes opened, and he resorted to stabbing his finger repeatedly into her deltoid.

“Trini, come on,” he said, raising his voice slightly. “Wake up.”

He heard clomping footsteps behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see Jason and Billy enter the room. The next moment, he felt a sharp pain erupt from the right half of his jaw.

“Ow, not cool, crazy girl.”

He looked back at the girls to find that Kim was the one who had awakened first and subsequently slugged him in the face.

“Not my fault. Didn’t anybody ever tell you not to wake a sleeping Ranger?” Kim said, sassy even seconds after waking up. She poked Trini’s cheek until the other girl woke up.

***

Waking Trini was a slow but amusing process. First, she growled. Then she groaned. Finally, she opened her eyes, but only for as long as it took to identify whomever had interrupted her sleep, presumably adding them to a hit list for later retaliation.

“Nope,” she grumbled to Kim. “You kept me awake during my sleep shift. Goodnight, Kimberly.”

“Kept you awake, huh?” Zack said.

That made Trini open her eyes for real. For some reason, the entire team had assembled in the morphing grid room, and Kim was just as confused as Trini.

“Is this one of those dreams that seems totally real except for one weird thing?” Trini asked no one in particular as Kim sat up.

Jason laughed. “Check if Zack has horns. If he does, then you know it’s not a dream.”

Kim only barely stopped herself from impulsively planting a kiss on Trini’s cheek. Hopefully next time they woke up together (and Kim would do all she could to make sure there was a next time) they would have each slept for more than a couple of hours and they would be in a bed instead of on the metal floor of an alien spaceship. And their closest friends wouldn’t be surrounding them. Kim loved them, sure, but they had awful timing.

Jason spoke, snapping Kim out of her little daydream. “Zack, seriously, what’s up?”

Zack stood. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like a puppy right now,” Kim said, rubbing the back of her tight neck. As much as she’d enjoyed cuddling with Trini’s leg, her muscles were not soon going to forgive her posture.

“I’m going to ignore the fact that you just insulted puppies and second Jason’s question,” Billy said. “I was having a very good dream when Jason woke me up. Did you guys know he kicks like a baby kangaroo--”

“Billy,” Jason said, raising his hand in a plea for him to stop talking. “...A baby kangaroo? Really? Like, not even an adult one?”

Jason flushed redder than his armor, and Kim made a mental note to tease him about this later. She glanced at Trini, who was looking up at the ceiling and wistfully mourning the death of slumber.

“I lost the power coin,” Zack blurted out.

Everyone’s eyes landed on him.

“Won’t it just reappear in your pocket?” Kim asked.

“No, no,” Zack said, inhaling deeply before continuing. “The green one.”

 _“WHAT?!”_ A booming voice filled the room as Zordon’s matrix lit up. There was venom behind his slow, careful words. “Zachary Taylor. What did you say?”

“It’s not my fault,” Zack defended. “I got stuck in prison--”

“Prison?” Kim’s whispered to Trini, who shrugged.

“--because I got arrested for punching a guy in the face--”

Jason’s forehead collided with his own palm.

“--which I absolutely do not remember doing.”

Billy narrowed his eyes at Zack and asked the question that was on everyone’s minds. “Were you on drugs? Because if you were on drugs--”

“No!” Zack yelled. “That coin did something to me, man.” His voice broke. He pulled his own power coin out of his pocket and held it up. There were glowing green veins reaching across the surface like a dozen fingers of a necrotic hand. He turned to that Zordon could see the coin too. “What the hell is this?”

Zordon was quiet.

“Zordon,” Jason said, using his firmest leaderly tone, “what’s wrong with his coin?”

“Hang on,” Kim cut in. “You were in prison? Why didn’t you tell us?”

Zack shrugged and avoided the eyes of his teammates. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to bother you guys.”

The crease between Kim’s eyebrows deepened.

“It’s whatever,” Zack said, kicking his foot at nothing and scuffing the floor. “Tommy came and got me--”

“You called Tommy?”

Zack looked up at Kim and held her gaze.

“You called Tommy,” Kim repeated in disbelief. “Did you not hear what Rita said? About other people coming for the Zeo crystal?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Zack asked, his volume rising. He clenched his coin in his fist, his knuckles white.

Kim stood and took an aggressive step towards Zack. “This girl shows up in the middle of the semester, not even a month after we beat Rita, and you weren’t even a little suspicious?”

Zack looked back at the floor.

Kim shouted at her teammates. “Did none of you guys think she might be, oh, I don’t know, evil?”

Billy spoke softly. “She doesn’t look like an alien.”

“Neither did Rita,” Kim countered.

Trini muttered, “You never saw her up close and personal.”

“Yeah...she was pretty weird,” Jason said.

“Exactly,” Billy agreed.

“Definitely weird,” Jason reiterated. If Kim hadn’t been utterly overwhelmed by the urge to hit something, she might have found their rationale convincing, and she might have interpreted Jason’s next sentence as vitally honest rather than hostile. “Just because you don’t like Tommy doesn’t make her evil, Kim.”

Kim’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding, right? Just because Zack's basically dating her doesn't mean we can trust her!"

"At least I can hang out with someone I like without knocking their teeth out," Zack sneered.

Kim felt a hand on her shoulder--Trini's--and that grounding was very possibly the only thing that kept her from punching Jason.

“Totally uncalled for,” Kim said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Zordon broke in. “This is not the time for petty in-fighting.”

Kim felt her face flush. Red rose behind her eyes, her vision blurring. “Actually, I think this is the perfect time for in-fighting.”

Zack jabbed a finger at her. “And I think someone is a little jealous.”

Kim bolted forward into Zack’s space. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Kim, come on,” Trini said, following and pulling at Kim’s shoulder.

“No, I think he should explain.”

“Uh, guys.” Billy had pulled his coin out of his pocket. It didn’t look as bad as Zack’s, but four or five of the same parasitic capillaries crawled across the surface. Each of the Rangers checked their own pockets to find the same eerie green glow leeching into their coins. Jason’s and Trini’s were only as bad as Billy’s, but Kim’s was almost entirely enveloped by the green miasma. A very small sound escaped from her throat, her face frozen as if she was watching the gruesome climax of a horror film and couldn’t tear her eyes away.

Silence seeped into the room.

The minute that passed before Zordon finally spoke felt like hours. “The green coin is regenerating its power by feeding off of yours.” Zordon sighed in what Kim hoped wasn’t premature defeat. “Memory loss, extreme rage... We have less time than I thought. Take the zords and split up. Find it.”

None of the Rangers moved.

“I can’t morph,” Kim whispered. “Oh my god, I can’t morph.” Her eyes darting around the room, looking for something to focus on, finding nothing. She half registered the red and blue blurs rushing towards the part of the pit they had nicknamed the zord lot. Billy and Jason, all suited up like the pro Rangers they were. Zack and Trini stayed behind, neither wearing their armor.

It had been Kim’s fault that they had taken so long to figure out morphing in the first place, and now it was happening again. She felt like the broken link, the asynchronous wave. All the strength drained from her limbs, and suddenly she felt like she was tumbling from the top of a cheer lift. She’d always been the flyer, slim and strong, light and quick, and now she was falling, collapsing against cold metal.

She felt two pairs of hands catch her. She realized, during that moment in which she felt unbearably human, just how much faster and stronger she’d gotten since becoming a Ranger. Now that energy, that power, was gone. She refused to pull her power coin out of her pocket again, afraid of what she knew she'd see: a part of herself swallowed up.

“Where we going?” Kim managed, noticing that she was not being carried in the same direction as Jason and Billy had gone.

“Med bay,” Trini said quickly.

“Bullshit.” Kim planted her feet and wriggled free of her friends’ supportive arms, standing on her own. She’d been headstrong long before picking up that pink rock. Her legs might have lost all their supernatural strength, but her willpower was as solid as the ship. She’d be damned if she wasn’t going to fight the jackass who made her doubt herself for even a second.

“Kim--”

Kim cut Trini’s protesting short. “I don’t need my armor to fly.”

Zack said, “Shall I show you to the giant hole in the mountain from when I tried to drive without a suit?”

“Trini,” Kim pleaded. She locked onto Trini’s eyes and hoped that Trini would be more impressed by this showing of stubbornness than she was worried for Kim’s well-being.

Trini broke their stare to roll her eyes, signaling her resignation.

“Zack, go suit up,” Kim said, still looking at Trini.

He glanced between the two girls like he was watching a ping pong match, only leaving when Trini shot him a look that screamed _scram_.

Once Zack had started jogging out of the morphing grid room towards his zord, Kim threw her arms around Trini’s neck.

“I’ll be fine,” Kim said into Trini’s hair before releasing her.

Trini shrugged. “Just come back in, like, one piece, okay?”

“You too.”

“Guessing the guys have downtown covered,” Trini said. “The crystal should be safe.”

Kim shook her head. “Having an actual lead to work with would make this whole find-and-destroy thing a thousand times easier.”

“Lucky you,” a new voice said from outside of the open door’s threshold. Damp red hair and a soaked green rain jacket walked into the room. “You guys should really stop leaving that open,” Tommy said, gesturing towards the door. “Now, what were you saying about the crystal?”


	11. Chapter 11

Trini leapt between Tommy and Kim, staring down their uninvited guest like a cheetah challenging a gazelle to a race. She had two advantages over Tommy: armor and a teammate. _Bring it._

“Oh, come on,” Tommy said, rolling her neck until it cracked. “I don’t wanna hurt your girlfriend. In fact, I don’t wanna hurt any of you. Just tell me where the Zeo crystal is.”

“If we get out of this, I’m changing all the guys’ text tones to a recording of me saying ‘I told you so,’” Kim whispered behind Trini.

Trini kept her eyes trained on Tommy, her fists raised in a defensive stance. “Why? Why do you want the crystal?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Tommy replied with a wave of her hand.

Kim pushed past Trini to address Tommy directly. “Of course it matters. News flash: you don’t get to destroy our planet.”

“Why the hell would I want to destroy it? I’m trying to make it better,” Tommy said, putting a hand over her chest in mock solemnity. “I’m trying to save people who _deserve_ it.”

Trini wondered how exactly the green power coin worked. Tommy’s sense of humor and levity had very quickly decayed into a palpable sneering cynicism.

“Yeah, I’ve only heard that one in...every movie ever,” Kim said. “The whole ‘cleansing the earth’ thing? Cliche.” She spat out the last word like it was the most debasing insult she’d ever delivered, but Tommy shrugged it off.

“Trini,” Tommy started, “you helped save this town a couple weeks ago. And what have they given you for it? Has your life gotten any easier? Any better?”

Trini flinched, dropping her fists slightly. Tommy wasn’t exactly wrong--Angel Grove hadn’t suddenly become paradise just because Trini could lift a car.

Tommy continued. “I can only imagine how hard it is to help the same people who make your life miserable.”

But Trini wasn’t in this for everyone else. She didn’t go to training every day thinking about the bullies at school (or the bullies at home). When she put on her armor, she thought about her little brothers who looked up at her with nothing but admiration even though they had no idea about her second life as a superhero. She thought about the other quiet kids at school, the ones who weren’t hiding super strength behind their stoic faces. Most of all, she was in this for her teammates, the four people who had suddenly become more than family. They were five parts of one entity.

Trini's gaze lingered on Kim for a moment. Then she clenched her jaw and faced Tommy again. "Are you almost done? 'Cuz I usually fall asleep during assemblies and stuff when people are giving boring speeches."

With an overwrought roll of her eyes (form lacking in subtlety which Trini would have heavily criticized their lives hadn’t been presently in danger), Tommy dashed towards them faster than Trini had ever seen anyone, even a fellow Ranger, move.

“Rita wasn’t that fast,” Trini said.

“Guess all that gold was weighing her down,” Kim replied.

Tommy towered over Trini. She was even taller than Kim by a few inches. Trini willed her armor to spread over her skin, and a second later she was in full Ranger defense mode--but there was something wrong. She could still feel the cool air of the morphing grid room against her forearm, and one of her toes was still touching the cold floor. There were holes in her armor, and she felt very much like a fish who had had some of its scales rubbed off. Exposed. Alright, so maybe Trini didn’t have her fully operational armor, but she still had one hell of a fighter on her side. No way Tommy would try and take them both on, even if Kim couldn’t suit up. Trini called the boys over their suits’ comm system. The whole team would be back together soon.

“Hm. That doesn’t look right,” Tommy said, cocking her head and scanning Trini. “I thought it was supposed to look a little more--”

Green tendrils wrapped over Tommy’s shoulders like a harness. Smaller shoots branched off, covering her arms, her stomach, her legs. A mask with an uncanny resemblance to Trini’s own closed in around Tommy’s face. The green armor was a perfect copy of the Rangers’--only it wasn’t a copy. Tommy had become the green Power Ranger, second skin and all.

“--like this,” Tommy finished her thought in true dramatic villain form.

“She’s definitely going for a blackout on the bad guy bingo board,” Kim mumbled, raising her fists to mirror Trini’s stance.

Tommy examined her own newly armored hands. “Now, tell your fellow Ranger where she might find this secret rock.”

“Not a chance,” Trini hissed.

“If you won’t tell me, maybe you’ll show me.” Tommy grabbed Kim by the arm and bolted out of the ship’s front door with the Pink Ranger in tow.

“Kim!” Trini shouted. And just like that, Trini’s advantages--and the girl she was falling for--were gone.

***

Part of Trini was tempted to shut off her comm system and chase Tommy herself. While she might have been the kind of impulsive to jump across a cliff to escape social interaction, she wasn’t reckless enough to run after a Big Bad. She’d fought Rita one-on-one, and she still woke up some days shocked to be alive. Their best best of getting Kim back and taking Tommy down was sticking together. Trini radioed the others. “She’s got Kim.”

 _“We got eyes on her, Trin,”_ Jason said over the suits’ comm system. “ _She’s headed for town._ ”

Zack’s voice followed. _“And she’s about to get masto-dunked on.”_

 _“Do you have time to get to your zord?”_ Billy asked.

“I don’t know,” Trini replied.

 _“Hang on, I’ll come pick you up,”_ Billy offered.

 _“Meet you guys down there,”_ Jason said, signing off.

A few seconds later, Billy’s blue triceratops skidded into the pit where Trini waited. None of them had quite gotten the hang of piloting the giant dinos yet--except Kim, who had been a natural.

“I used to love those car racing games,” Kim had explained when Zack had asked what her secret was. “You know, the ones where the cows turn into steaks when you hit them.”

Trini had been fairly certain that running into cows was in fact not the point of racing games, but she hadn’t said anything. She’d just laughed. Kim had that effect on her, inspiring her to laugh when she would typically say something sarcastic.

Everyone else’s zord driving was much less smooth than Kim’s. Billy certainly wasn’t about to attempt a barrel roll, and ever since he had started learning how to drive with Jason’s dad he insisted on stopping at every stop sign and red light on their way downtown. The third time his zord started to slow in front of a traffic signal, Trini slapped his hands away from the controls and took over. She argued that she had a better view of the road from his lap than he had from behind her, and he conceded.

They could see Jason’s tyrannosaurus zord from a few blocks down the street. Zack wouldn’t be far behind.

 _“Form up around the old Krispy Kreme,”_ Jason ordered. _“Three block perimeter. Don’t let her in.”_

***

“So either you guys just really love doughnuts or there’s something at Krispy Kreme that you don’t want me to find,” Tommy said, leaning out over the railing on the roof of the Angel Grove bank building.

She didn’t have a zord, but Kim had found out quickly that Tommy didn’t need one to move as fast as a car. Kim had felt her own energy draining as Tommy had leapt from roof to roof across entire city blocks at once, the green coin sapping the pink one’s power.

“Lucky that I’m looped into your network. I couldn't have done it without you guys. Well, I could have, but this is more fun.” She laughed, and Kim knew without seeing Tommy’s face that she was smiling smugly, thinking she had already won.

Kim slumped against the short brick wall that separated the roof from the alley four stories below. She couldn’t have run to her team if she’d wanted to. If she’d been able to, she would have stood up and punched Tommy right in her freckled, dimpled cheek.

“I always feel so awake at Krispy Kreme, even in the morning. So lively Makes sense to bury the Zeo crystal there,” Tommy thought aloud.

“That’s probably just the sugar,” Kim managed breathlessly.

Tommy squatted down next to her. Kim looked into the black visor.

“You wanna stay here?” Tommy said in a soft voice that dripped with sympathy. “You seem beat.”

Kim exhaled and nodded. She didn’t have the energy to lash out with another biting comeback.

Tommy sighed and scooped Kim up in her arms, leaping into the sky a second later.

***

Trini and Billy were stationed a few blocks north of the old Krispy Kreme, close to city hall. There wasn’t much in this part of the town, just local government buildings and the bank. Nobody hung out here, and it would be easy to spot Tommy if she showed up.

“Hey, what’s that?” Billy asked pointing at the sky.

“What’s what?” Trini said, searching for the unidentified object in the clouds.

“There!”

Trini squinted at the sky and then saw what Billy had found. Tommy had appeared in spectacular fashion, jumping between buildings like it was as natural as walking.

“Is that Kim?” Billy sounded horrified.

Without responding, Trini hit the eject button and shot both her and Billy up into the air. Craters cracked on the concrete where the Rangers landed like meteors.

“That was pretty cool,” Billy said, grinning brightly before his mask and visors snapped into place.

Tommy had spotted them and stopped running. She dropped Kim on the roof behind her.

“Let’s get this over with,” Trini grumbled, cracking her knuckles.

Trini heard Tommy’s voice in her ear over the comm system. If she could hear the green ranger, so could her team. _“Yeah, let’s make it fast. I’ve got an appointment at two.”_

Tommy seemed to teleport off of the rooftop. Trini felt a tap on her shoulder, but instead of glancing to see who was there she kicked back with her left leg.

“Ouch!” Tommy yelped. “I was trying to make this fun.”

“Grade school pranks were never funny,” Trini said, throwing a hook that Tommy ducked to avoid.

Billy jumped up onto the roof to check on Kim, which Trini was thankful for. She would have gone up there herself, but she felt the need to pummel Tommy first. Kim was in good hands.

The two traded shots and Trini's conviction faded. Tommy wasn’t a trained fighter by any standard, but Trini could feel the sheer strength in each of her attacks. It was like fighting two Rangers at once, and Trini knew she couldn’t keep it up for much longer.

Tommy threw a lazy punch at Trini’s right side that she easily dodged. Trini took the opportunity to seize Tommy’s arm in a vice grip, but Tommy anticipated her move.

“Ooh, shouldn’t have done that,” Tommy said as she reversed her stance and pulled Trini up off the ground over her back. Tommy flipped Trini over, a move straight out of the Ranger handbook. It was the exact combo the team had used to finish Goldar off. _Tommy did her research,_ Trini admitted to herself. _Her creepy, creepy research._

“Reading mom’s old books sure paid off,” Tommy said, standing over Trini. “I gotta know, do you guys have Ranger telepathy yet? I guess that comes later. Anyway, Mom would want me to thank you for helping me find this rock. I'll drop an edible arrangement off or something.”

Tommy knew their moves. She knew what they were better than they did. Moreover, she knew who they were. She had probably been watching each of them, learning things about their lives, taking ‘know your enemy’ to the extreme of befriending the people she meant to fight. Trini tried to stay conscious as she lay on the sidewalk, but fighting Tommy had been harder than taking on a dozen putties. She thought of her brothers, her teammates, Kim--all the people she was letting down--as she passed out.

***

Up on the roof, Billy checked Kim’s vitals, methodical even in the midst of a fight. She was breathing, but her heart rate was slow. She could feel the heavy thump-thump in her chest each time the strained muscle pumped blood through her body, and she felt it when it skipped a beat, her chest seizing up. She grabbed Billy’s hand and squeezed hard.

“Trini’s in trouble,” Kim said. “I can’t feel her.”

“She’ll be okay,” Billy said, getting to his feet. He spoke into his comm system. “Tommy’s near the bank two blocks from the old Krispy Kreme. And she’s moving fast.”

_“On it.”_

“Hey, Jason, how come she’s so much faster than us?” Billy asked.

Kim sat up, amazed that she was able to move at all. “She’s not--not without this.” She held up her own power coin, the green glow radiating from it in wisps, twisting the air around it like a mirage in the desert.

It was possible that Kim would never regain her Ranger strength. She might never morph again. But it was also possible that she was the only one who could stop Tommy, and so she held her coin out to Billy.

“Throw it as far as you can.”

Billy hesitated. “Will it come back?”

Kim shook her head.

Billy obliged and wound up to chuck the once pink power coin into the atmosphere, but at the last second--

“Wait,” Kim said. “I have an idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one or two more chapters to follow! 
> 
> Also, i just graduated from college and now have a ton of free time on my hands, so please send me prompts over at fictional-portal on tumblr :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
> 
> ...and then KISS KISS KISS

Billy picked Kim up again and dropped into the alley behind the bank.

“Okay,” he said, peeking around the corner of the building. “Zack and Jason are still a couple blocks away, but they’re in. We can stall her ‘til they get here but we have to be very,  _very_ careful."

“You’re sure you’re okay with this?” Kim asked Billy for the third time.

He nodded, gulping.

“Not in the face, I promise,” she said. She felt a rush of adrenaline and stood up.

“Kimberly, right now I’m a little more worried about the fists on Bizarro Ranger out there. No offense.”

Her heart sank. This plan had to work. She couldn’t lose the Rangers, not to Tommy. Angel Grove couldn’t lose its protectors, and she couldn’t lose the only real friends she’d ever had. The pit in her stomach felt like it was getting deeper.

On Billy’s signal, Kim ran out into the street. The 'signal' was Billy throwing himself twenty feet backwards and onto the ground. Kim sprinted out after him and saw Trini lying on the ground, her armor tattered, pieces flecking off every second like little bits of confetti. Billy’s wasn’t falling apart quite as fast, but they were running out of time. Kim wanted so badly to run to Trini’s side, to shake her awake, to carry her back to the ship and pour her into a bed in the medbay, but at that moment the best way she could help the people she loved was to square up as if she were fighting her teammate.

“Kim, please!” Billy shouted, making sure he was looped into the comm network. “We’re friends!”

Tommy, already on the roof of the building right next to the old Krispy Kreme, turned around when she heard Billy’s plea. In a second, she was within earshot of the confrontation.

“Not anymore, Billy,” Kim replied, taking slow, dramatic steps towards him. If she was suddenly supposed to be evil, she was damn well going to act the part.

Kim clutched her glowing green power coin in her other hand to make sure that Tommy would see it.

“We’re a team!” Billy said, his voice breaking. Kim was glad that he kept his visor up. If she’d had to look at him while pretending not care about the other Rangers, she would have broken down in a heap.

“You see, Billy,” Kim started, “you amateurs have been holding me back.” She realized that she was reciting a speech that the former head cheerleader had given right before she was unanimously voted off of the team. “You can’t expect me to spend all of my time helping you get better when you’ll never be as strong as me--”

Billy cut her off. “As _I_ ,” he corrected.

“What?”

“Grammatically speaking--”

She pulled Billy off the concrete by his neck, though really Billy just leaned up in an impressively improvised sit up. Kim couldn’t have lifted him if she’d wanted to, so she was thankful that he caught on to what she was attempting.

Tommy left her perch on the rooftop. “This looks like a party I’d hate to miss.”

Kim shoved Billy back on the road and looked up to see Tommy looking amused and smug. She really thinks she’s won this, Kim thought.

“So what,” Tommy began, “you’re just like me now?”

Kim held up her coin and examined it. She could feel the corrupt energy pulling at her, a tug in her chest that was becoming harder and harder to resist. “Just like you.”

“Hey, just don’t try to take my crystal,” Tommy joked. “Kinda need that for my mom.”

“For your mom?” Kim asked. Maybe Tommy really wasn’t interested in taking over the world, but that didn’t change the fact that Kim wanted nothing more than to take her down.

Tommy powered down her armor’s visor and brought her hand to the back of her neck. “Yeah, she’s, uh, she’s sick. I figured that crystal thing could help her.”

“Shit,” Kim said quietly. Had this all been a major misunderstanding?

“And after, I figure, why not suck the life out of a couple of the jerk doctors who let her get sick in the first place?”

Kim doubt faded as quickly as it had come on, and her desire to kick Tommy’s ass returned in full force. She glanced over at Trini, still motionless on the asphalt, and remembered that she couldn’t hurl herself at Tommy. Not yet, anyway. The boys would be there in minutes, seconds maybe, and then this would all be over. They’d all be safe, and with any luck, they would all still be Rangers.

***

Trini blinked her eyes open and was confused as to why she was looking at the sky. She didn’t normally nap outside. Moreover, she didn’t normally nap while wearing her armor--and then it all came back to her.

She tried to sit up, but pain shot through her abdomen. Tommy had definitely left bruises with those vicious strikes. Trini could barely turn her head when she heard noise to her left. Her vision was hazy, but she was fairly certain that the blue mass puddled on the ground a few meters away was Billy. Some civilian was stepping up to Tommy.

No.

Not a civilian.

Kimberly.

Where were the other Rangers? Why weren’t Zack and Jason helping her? Why was Billy crumpled on the ground while Kim stood tall, unscathed and unsuited?

A sickening green glimmer from Kim’s hand caught Trini’s eye. That horrible coin came into focus, and Trini felt dread start to pool like water filling up a small room. They were too late. Kim was gone. Their team was destroyed.

Trini lay on the road, sure that she never wanted to get up again.

***

“Well? You coming?”

Kim looked up from the road.

“This crystal’s not going to carry itself,” Tommy said, sauntering in the direction of the Krispy Kreme.

The boys were nowhere to be seen. Kim could hear a rumbling sound growing, but she was fairly certain that it was her own anger buzzing in her ears.

Kim heard herself say, “This plan sucks.” Then she was running at Tommy, barreling into her. When Kim’s fist connected with the green exoskeletal helmet, blood blossomed across her knuckles.

The surprise factor could only keep Tommy down for so long, but fortunately Kim felt herself being lifted into the air. She landed a final kick and cracked Tommy’s visor with her heel.

“What happened to the plan?” Billy said behind Kim.

“She’s gonna kill people!” Kim shouted, still flailing furiously.

Billy put her down. “No, she’s not. Look.”

Zack and Billy’s rounded their respective corners at the same time and flanked the street where their teammates were.

Tommy started to get up, stumbling. She clutched her head, and Kim couldn’t help but be proud. If the amount of blood on her hand was any indication, she had hit Tommy hard.

“Zack said hi,” Billy relayed. Then he addressed Tommy. “Jason says let us take you to Zordon or else.”

Without a characteristic quip, Tommy jumped into the air. She barely reached the ledge of the building above her, and she had no choice but to grab onto the crumbling concrete and try to swing herself up onto the roof.

“Maybe she should stop trying to jump on buildings,” Billy said, leaping up after her and landing perfectly. Jason and Zack both ejected from their zords, following Billy up onto the rooftop.

Jason’s voice carried from several stories up. “You’re done, Tommy. Hand over the power coin.”

Tommy only hung her head.

***

When Trini woke up again, she didn’t see the sky above her. There was a metal ceiling instead, and something was beeping incessantly. The medbay.

“She’s awake!” Alpha-5’s robotic voice announced.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway outside.

“Ughhh,” Trini groaned. Her entire body felt like one giant bruise.

Four faces appeared over her bed: Billy, Jason, Zack, and Alpha.

Alpha spoke first. “There was some internal bleeding, but it appears to have cleared up. Your accelerated healing factors are fully functional.”

“Man, we thought you died, Crazy Girl,” Zack said. “Taking on Tommy by yourself...that was--”

“Dangerous? Reckless? Idiotic? I can keep going. I know a lot more synonyms,” Jason said.

Zack swatted the leader’s shoulder. “You can reprimand her later, boss man. Let’s just celebrate...”

The voices faded into the background as Trini stopped paying attention. She remembered getting knocked down and not being able to get back up. She remembered Billy lying there defeated. Four faces--Kim wasn’t there. And then Trini remembered the terrible green glow in Kim’s hand.

“I can’t believe her plan actually worked,” Billy said, shaking his head.

Trini grumbled, “I didn’t make any plan.”

“Not your plan. Kim’s.”

The tension in Trini’s head felt like it was pulling her brain in three directions. She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question that burned in her throat. The answer might break her.

“Somebody should probably go see if she’s awake,” Billy said to the other guys.

Zack obliged, swiftly leaving the room.

“Wait--” Trini said weakly. No one responded.

Jason picked up one of her hands in his. “Glad you’re okay, Trin. That was some fight.”

“What happened?” Trini managed.

“We’ll fill you in later. Right now you should rest.”

Trini finally blurted it out. “Where’s Kim?”

“Riiiiiight here,” Zack proclaimed with a bow as if he were a royal herald.

Trini saw Kim in the doorway and nearly passed out again, but she noticed the expression on Kim’s face. Her eyes were red and watery, but they were bright (even under the fluorescent lights of the medbay). Her lips were parted in a little smile that widened when their eyes met.

***

“And then Tommy was stuck dangling off of a rooftop. She doesn't remember anything. Zordon's keeping the green coin in the ship's matrix, and Tommy's mom is miraculously better thanks to a little Zeo dust.” Kim held up her own pink power coin, which showed no signs of corruption. "Everything's pretty much back to normal." Kim said, finishing her recounting of the rest of the fight.

“Damn,” Trini said. Her voice was hoarse. 

“Yeah. You should have seen my acting. Oscar-worthy.”

Trini would have laughed if her body had been able to accommodate such an exertion.

Kim had been holding onto Trini’s hand since the minute she'd entered the room. The boys had left fifteen minutes before at Zack’s persistent urging, and supposedly they were picking up pizza.

Trini whispered something.

“What?”

“I thought you’d gone green.”

Kim scoffed. “Please.” She leaned down so that her face hovered just above Trini’s. “Tommy is so not my type.”

“Yeah?”

Kim brush her lips against Trini’s. “Mmhmm.” They kissed a few times, savoring the heat trapped between their bodies and the complete lack of urgency. Kim’s hand wandered up to gently hold Trini’s face, the sharp jawline pressing into her palm.

When Trini made a strange grunting sound that Kim was very sure did not signify pleasure, she pulled away “Are you okay?” She asked.

“I got a couple broken ribs and a pretty girl kissing me, so I guess I’m breaking even.” Trini inhaled sharply, grabbing at her stomach. “Though maybe we should save the kissing for later.”

“I can wait ‘til later,” Kim said, pressing a final soft kiss to Trini’s cheek.

Trini brought their hands back together. “Stay with me?”

“Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's it kids; thanks for tagging along for the ride! as always i <3 comments and you're all lovely for reading.
> 
> send me prompts over at @fictional-portal on tumblr :) i've got a couple of trimberly one-shots prompts to fill, so stay tuned!

**Author's Note:**

> always down for prompts over on tumblr: fictional-portal


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